An appeal for the revocation of Linda Rice’s New York coach license was brought before the court system about 18 months after a New York State Game Commission hearing officer concluded that she seriously violated two regulations on racing.
The recall of no less than three years and a $50,000 fine proposed by the hearing officer in mid-2021 and ordered by the committee follows an eight-day hearing that spans several months into the modern era. Translate. A temporary restraining order halts the punishment pending Rice’s appeal.
Rice’s attorneys, Andrew J. Turro and Daniel B. Rinaldi, filed a 71-page brief on November 16 in the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division. The file under review, which includes all documents and transcripts compiled in the case, was filed the same day and consists of seven volumes of 4,398 pages, according to online filings.
Four arguments were presented to the appeals court by Rice’s attorneys: the commission’s order was not supported by substantial evidence; part of the regulation underlying the commission’s order was vaguely unconstitutional; the commission’s orders were a “significant departure from the committee’s precedent” to the extent that it was arbitrary and capricious; and the three-year revocation of a license is so disproportionate to the offense as to shock the sense of fairness and thus constitute an abuse of self-determination as a matter of law.
“(O)n on February 1, 2018, Ms. Rice agreed, without hesitation, to be interviewed by the Committee regarding the intentional misconduct in this case,” the summary states in heading. “Nearly two years later, and although the Commission has known and never prosecuted similar conduct, which is common in New York’s horse racing industry, the Commission has charged Ms. Rice with allegations of misconduct. “
A summary of the response will be submitted by the committee.
Rice was charged on November 29, 2019, with knowingly gaining access to the wrong names and confidential information about horses entered into overnight races in New York before the entries closed, helping her decide whether to import horses from their stables; and pay a considerable amount for the information. Rice argued that the payments to officials were Christmas gifts.
New York Supreme Court Justice Mark L. Powers led the first phase of the judicial review of the Rice sanction. Powers found in a May 17 order that the origin of the incident dates back to 2011 and he wrote about solid evidence that she received invalid access to entries from Jose Morales. , an employee of the NYRA’s racing office, from October 2013 to August 2014.
“75 emails were sent to Ms. Rice by Jose Morales, including the names and previous records of the horses participating in the overnight races,” Powers wrote. “Ironically, 44 races had 8 or more horses participating at the time of email (races are not necessary to ‘hustle’). Of 23 of the 75 races mentioned in the email, Ms. Rice entered one or more horses in those races after receiving the entries.”
Morales left the NYRA job in August 2014 to become a racing agent, and that eventually led to Rice’s legal troubles. By order of Powers, Morales’ 2017 application to renew a jockey dealer license was not granted. The Queen’s District Attorney’s Office is conducting a criminal investigation into illegal access to the NYRA’s InCompass Database system including Morales as an agent.
“During that investigation,” Powers wrote, “Jose Morales disclosed his relationship with Ms. Rice to avoid the possibility of incarceration.”
The Powers order ruled that a regulation applicable to Rice’s case prohibiting “any act or act of misconduct, corruption or fraud related to racing” was not unconstitutional because of the ambiguity on surface or as applied. He deferred other matters to the court, where the case is currently pending.
