Trainer involved in doping case sentenced to 33 months in prison

Trainer Marcos Zulueta, one of the defendants in a sweeping federal horse doping case brought two years ago by the federal government, was sentenced on Thursday to 33 months in prison in the US, in exchange for a guilty plea to a fraud charge.

Zulueta, 53, offered no reaction as the sentence was imposed. The maximum he could have received was three years under federal sentencing guidelines. He pleaded guilty in October to one count of drug adulteration and misbranding with intent to commit fraud.

Zulueta was also ordered to serve one year of supervised release when he gets out of prison and to forfeit $47,525 – his alleged purse winnings with doped horses.

Now out on bond, his prison sentence is due to start on May 24.

"All my life I tried to do the right thing," Zulueta said in brief remarks before sentencing to Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil in U.S. District Court in New York.

Zulueta, one of 31 individuals charged in the doping case, said he came from Cuba to America where he had been given a "great opportunity" to achieve success.

"I made [a] mistake," he said. "I'm sorry for all the people I hurt."

Vyskocil said America is the land of opportunity but Zulueta "abused that opportunity, frankly."

She said that intercepted phone calls with trainer Jorge Navarro showed Zulueta's "total disregard" for the welfare of horses and jockeys who risked injury if one of his doped horses broke down.

Vyskocil said one of Zulueta's roles in the doping scheme, according to the intercepted calls, was "educating Navarro on new and experimental ways to drug horses and telling Navarro how to avoid getting caught by drug administrators or racing authorities."

Navarro, known on the backstretch as the "Juice Man," according to prosecutors, was among those charged in the doping case. He was sentenced to five years in prison in December after pleading guilty to a charge of conspiring to violate misbranding and adulteration laws.

Zulueta's attorney Robert Goldman appealed for a sentence of less than 33 months but was not specific.

In a sentencing memo this month, prosecutors Andrew Adams, Anden Chow, and Sarah Mortazavi wrote that Navarro and Zulueta had discussed their doping in a particularly candid conversation on March 10, 2019.

"Marcos, we need to clean up things because they are going to f**k us up. They're going to kick us out of the business if we keep up with the craziness, they're going to kick us out of the business, Marcos," Navarro said.

The prosecutors said that after Zulueta agreed, Navarro went on: "You have already made money, stop inventing things, stop that, stop that."

They said Zulueta did not stop and continued to dope horses up until the time of his arrest in March 2020.

Zulueta was suspended from racing after being arrested as were other defendants.

He trained out of Parx Racing and his horses ran mostly in claiming and mid-level races. Records show he trained 455 winners from 1,884 starters, amassing $13.1 million over the course of his career.

As the proceeding was wrapping up, Vyskocil offered Zulueta words of encouragement.

"You went astray over the course of several years but you can still make something of your life," she said. "You have to find the right path forward."

Jason Servis trial delayed until 2023

A New York judge on Thursday postponed until early next year Jason Servis' trial in a horse doping conspiracy case that the federal government brought in 2020 against the prominent trainer and more than two dozen others.

U.S. District Court Judge Vyskocil had hoped to try Servis in the fall with several other defendants who have been charged in the sweeping case and, like Servis, claim they are innocent. The judge said the Servis trial will now take place in the first quarter or 2023.

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