Jason Servis gets 4-year prison sentence in horse-doping finale

New York

Maximum Security’s trainer Jason Servis was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison as part of the federal government’s sweeping crackdown on horse doping at racetracks across the country.

The sentence handed down in U.S. District Court was the maximum that Servis could have received. He pleaded guilty in December to two crimes, a felony and a misdemeanor, for violating misbranding laws regarding his use of a compound chemical called SGF-1000, the bronchodilator clenbuterol and of a more potent version of clenbuterol.

Servis, 66, a resident of Jupiter, Fla., was sentenced to three years for the felony and one year for the misdemeanor. Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil ordered the sentences to run consecutively.

Flashback: Servis pleads guilty in horse-doping case.

Servis, wearing a blue suit and tie, stood at the defense table as the sentence was imposed. He offered no reaction as his attorney Rita Glavin stood next to him with her hand on his shoulder.

Vyskocil rejected Glavin’s argument that Servis’s conduct was not as bad as other trainers snared in the doping case. Glavin contended those trainers admitted to using more potent illegal drugs that were more dangerous to horses.

Indeed, Vyskocil said even four years might not be long enough given Servis’s prominence in the horse-racing industry. Four years were the most she could impose, however.

“In my judgment more than a 48-month sentence might be more appropriate,” the judge said.

The government announced the horse-doping crackdown in March 2020. Charges were brought against 32 people, including 13 trainers and seven veterinarians. Servis was the 21st person in the case who was sentenced to prison.

Vyskocil said Servis sent owners bills disguising the use of SGF-1000 as “acupuncture and chiropractic.” Prosecutors say SGF-1000 was an injectable drug compounded and manufactured in unregistered facilities and that it contained growth factors to make horses run faster.

“You chose to do that,” the judge told Servis. “Nobody tricked you into doing that.”

Vyskocil said when Servis was asked by New York state troopers, he lied and claimed he gave SGF-1000 to only four or five horses.

She said he had admitted virtually all the horses in his stables had been given the substance. They included Maximum Security, who was the first-place finisher in 2019 Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs before being disqualified for jockey interference during the running of the race.

Vyskocil said Servis administered clenbuterol to horses without a prescription and in violation of racing rules. She also said Servis obtained the more potent clenbuterol from “notorious juicer” Jorge Navarro, a New Jersey trainer who was a co-defendant with Servis in the case. Navarro was sentenced in 2021 to five years in prison.

The judge quoted from a wiretap in which Servis told his assistant trainer that he had to keep Maximum Security on the clenbuterol he got from Navarro.

“Then you lied to Maximum Security’s owner,” the judge said, quoting from an email exchange Servis had with Gary West before the $20 million Saudi Cup in February 2020, just a month before his arrest. Maximum Security won that race.

Shortly after Servis’s arrest, Saudi Cup officials announced the winner’s purse of $10 million would be withheld pending an investigation.

“Just an FYI, Max has never been on anything out of the ordinary,” Servis told West.

Vyskocil also quoted West as begging Servis not to give Maximum Security anything that would risk a disqualification in the Saudi Cup.

The email chain was made public last week as an exhibit to a government sentencing brief. The chain began with West telling Servis to “consult whoever you need to consult to be 100 percent certain we don’t have any kind of accidental drug violation. If you have to feed Max just hay and organic carrots for a month before the race, do that too!!!”

West then said, “I would feel horrible to win a life-changing race like this for everyone only to find out we didn’t do something right because we didn’t know. I will gladly pay for any reasonable consulting work we need to have done to be sure we are ‘squeaky clean’ for the race.”

After Servis responded that the horse was never on anything illegal, West replied, “That is great, but ‘over there’ they might consider a ‘sugar cube’ illegal. I am not smart enough to know.”

“Instead you gave the horse illegal performance-enhancing drugs,” Vyskocil told Servis.

Prosecutor Sarah Mortazavi urged the judge to sentence Servis to more than three years in prison but less than the max. Glavin appealed for a sentence of fewer than three years.

Invited on Wednesday to address the court, Servis broke down in tears but then declined an offer to take a break.

When he composed himself, he said to Vyskocil, "No words can express how remorseful and sorry I am for the decisions I've made and the hurt I caused my wife, my two sons and others in my family.”

Vyskocil ordered Servis to forfeit $311,760 and to pay restitution in the amount of $163,932. She also ordered him to pay a $30,000 fine.

Servis remains free on bail until he reports to prison Nov. 1. He brought his wife of 45 years Natalie, and two sons to court with him. Also present were the girlfriends of the two sons and a long-time neighbor.

Servis submitted 37 letters of support, some from horse owners including Joseph Imbesi and Dennis Drazin. An attorney and the boss at Monmouth Park, Drazin wrote it was “noteworthy to consider that there was widespread use of SGF-1000 amongst trainers and vets in this country before New York racing put a warning on it overnight in September 2019.”

Mortazavi told the judge that Servis was not acting in good faith when he used SGF-1000 on his horses.

“He continued to use it up to the time of his arrest, knowing regulators had prohibited it,” she said.

Mortazavi added that Servis, in a defense sentencing memo, “spent a considerable amount of time throwing veterinarians under the bus.”

Servis had maintained that the vets who worked for him had advised him that SGF-1000 was legal.

Mortazavi said the defense argument that none of Servis’s horses tested positive for clenbuterol just “shows how hard it is to catch someone who is cheating.”

Glavin told Vyskocil the clenbuterol from Navarro was inexcusable, and her client knew that.

“The remorse he feels cannot be expressed for what it has cost him,” she said. “He didn’t drech. He didn’t shock with a shock machine. He didn’t milkshake,” Glavin said. “We submit there is a qualified difference compared to what other trainers were involved in and what they did which was beyond the pale.”

Glavin also blamed Navarro for Servis’s trouble.

“The greatest regret in his life is that Navarro ended up in the barn next to his,” she said.

Servis and Navarro had adjacent barns for years at Monmouth Park.

After imposing the sentence, Vyskocil again addressed Servis.

“I do accept your several expressions of remorse,” the judge said. “Relatively speaking, you are not an old man. You will have a life after you get out of prison.”

Servis replied, “Thank you.”

“We are disappointed in the sentence, particularly because both probation and the government recommended a lesser sentence that what was imposed,” Glavin said after the hearing. “Our view remains that Mr. Servis’s criminal conduct was less egregious than other trainers who received lesser sentences.

“Mr. Servis is deeply remorseful, and he remains eternally grateful to the many owners, colleagues and friends who, along with his family, provided him with unwavering support throughout this ordeal.”

Equibase records indicate Servis won 1,306 races from 5,281 starts over a career that began in 2001. His stable earned a then-best $4.9 million in 2017 before growing in subsequent years and exploding to $11 million in 2019.

After the hearing, Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, issued a statement that praised and endorsed the investigative work of the FBI and its sports-and-gaming initiative in its handling the horse-doping scheme.

“Today’s sentence sends a clear signal to those in the racehorse industry that no one is above the law," Williams said. “Endangering the welfare of animals for profit will not be tolerated. Illegally doping racehorses is a serious crime that will be met with a serious sentence.”

The Thoroughbred industry's leading publications worked together to cover this case.