Jury selection began April 27 during the trial of a Delaware woman who prosecutors allege helped veterinarian Dr. Seth Fishman deliver a success-boosting drug illegal accumulations for trainers, who used them to secretly build horses to win races.
At the end of the day, a jury of eight men and four women was sworn in to hear the case against Lisa Giannelli in United States District Court in New York.
Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil is scheduled to open on April 28. The government has two FBI agents lined up to testify as their first witnesses.
Giannelli was in court to select the jury.
One of the jurors chosen was a 60-year-old woman, who said during the talk that she attended the Kentucky Derby (G1) “so many times.”
Giannelli, of Felton, works for Fishman and his Florida company Equestology as a sales representative. They were arrested two years ago following a lengthy FBI investigation into suspected slingback doping that killed more than two dozen others.
Those charged include famous thoroughbred trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis. Navarro pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to five years in prison. Servis is awaiting a trial that has been pushed back to early 2023.
Giannelli’s case is being heard in the same court where Fishman was convicted on February 2 on two counts of conspiracy to violate adultery or misbranding laws after an 11-day trial. She was charged with one of those crimes.
Mermaid and Giannelli were the only ones in the case who had a chance to go to court. There have been nine other guilty pleas since his arrest, including that of Navarro.
Giannelli was due to be tried with Fish-Man, but after opening testimony and the government’s first witness testimony, a false case was declared after her attorney Louis Fasulo tested positive. with COVID-19, prevent him from continuing.
She faces five years in prison if convicted and is currently free on a $100,000 fine.
At a meeting on Monday, Fasulo said her client will testify in her own defense. He also said she would be his only witness. Fishman did not testify and his attorneys did not call any additional witnesses.
Fasulo told Vyskocil he was “100 percent certain” Giannelli would stand his ground.
“I never made that commitment, but we knew it was going to happen,” he said.
In court papers last month, prosecutors outlined their case against Giannelli: saying she went to racehorse training facilities in the Northeastern United States, offering to sell drugs of Mermaid” on request, regardless of the existence of any prescriptions, a medical need for such drugs, or the legality (or correctness) of selling such drugs directly to racehorse trainers.”
In court papers, Fasulo indicated his intention was to present a “in good faith” defense.
“A person acts in good faith when he or she has the honest belief, opinion or understanding that as part of her experience in the equestrian industry, veterinarians are authorized to sell drugs prescribed by them. dispensing or manufacturing and it is the responsibility of the trainer to adhere to the retraction time, even though a belief, opinion, or understanding turns out to be incorrect or inaccurate,” Fasulo wrote in a suggested guide. suggested that he wanted the jury to hear before the deliberation began.
At the previous trial, Fasulo sought to distance his client from Fish-Man, a tactic he is expected to employ this time around.
“We sit here today after hearing the government’s opening statement that Lisa Giannelli was a lone wolf in a flock of sheep,” he said at the start of his opening remarks to the jury earlier. “This case will prove that Lisa is a sheep herded by a sheep owner.”
Fasulo said that Giannelli had been the groom and coach before she came to work for Fishman and that they had worked together for 18 years.
He also noted that his clients did not have the ability to create the products that Fishman produced and did not have the ability to label them.
“She is not responsible for the products when they are presented to her, other than that they are presented by a veterinarian licensed in the states in which she does business,” he said.
At the end of his comment, he said that they made no secret of the fact that Giannelli had worked for Fishman.
“What the government finds in her home are products given to her by Seth Fishman, the veterinarian, and you’ll hear that she believes those products can be shipped to other people.” , he said.
The trial is expected to last two weeks.
Leading industry publications Thoroughbred are working together to cover this important trial.
