Government Says Servis Wiretaps Legit

[Wandering Eyes]

The United States Attorneys have filed a motion to deny Jason Servis and his fellow defendants' motions to suppress the wiretaps placed on their cell phones, along with the seized physical and electronic evidence from a search of veterinarian Seth Fishman's belongings. The motion was filed Sept. 2nd in the Southern District of New York by U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss, who writes, “the defendants' motions are entirely without merit and should be denied in full.”

On August 3, lawyers representing Servis filed a motion to have evidence against him that was obtained through wiretaps thrown out. Attorneys Rita Glavin and Michael Considine charged that the government obtained authorization from a court to tap into Servis's phone based on a sworn affidavit from an FBI agent that, they contend, “contained deliberately or recklessly false statements and the material omission of statutorily and constitutionally required information.”

The Servis legal team argued that the wiretap evidence should be thrown out because using it represents a violation of Servis's Fourth Amendment rights. The Fourth Amendment reads, in part: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”

But the government argued today that they were led to Servis through an earlier investigation of Standardbred trainer Nick Surick, of whom they say Navarro was his “doping mentor.”

“This case arose from an investigation into overlapping and widespread schemes by racehorse trainers, veterinarians, drug distributors, and others to obtain money through lies, deceit, and active concealment of sophisticated doping of racehorses through the use of purportedly `untestable' drugs,” the filing reads. The investigation of Jorge Navarro was linked to a previous investigation of his co-conspirator Nick Surick, whose wiretaps were not challenged. By then, they argue, “the Government's investigation had revealed ample evidence of Surick and Navarro's efforts to obtain, share, distribute, discuss, use, and conceal various  performance-enhancing drugs that they each intended to be, and believed to be, untestable by racing authorities.”

The facts uncovered in that investigation, the filing states, “informed the application for the initial wiretap of Navarro's cellphone and those of Navarro's co-conspirators,” including Servis.

“Initial and renewal interceptions over the Navarro Phone indicated that: (1) Servis was actively assisting Navarro to conceal Navarro's doping practices by `tipping off' Navarro to the presence of racetrack officials; (2) Navarro was willing to confide in Servis regarding his own doping practices and about his own corrupt relationship with an unnamed racetrack security official; (3) Navarro believed that Servis had his own corrupt relationship with a racetrack security official; and (4) Servis further participated in Navarro's doping scheme as a recipient of an unspecified, “[ir]regular” version of Clenbuterol, which Servis wished to obtain after assuring himself that regulators were not scrutinizing the Servis operation too closely,” the government filing argues.

On or about April 30, 2019, the government obtained permission for a wiretap, and that permission was extended three times, with the final extension coming July 30, 2019.

 

“The scheme being investigated was exceedingly complex,” the filing says. “There were ample intercepted conversations indicating that the drugs distributed amongst a number of the Target Subjects by design would not be on drug tests.”

“Even assuming that drug testing had been widely pursued, drug testing alone would not have revealed the scope of which (untestable) drugs were at issue, which trainers were purchasing drugs from Seth Fishman, or when these trainers were administering these drugs to racehorses in advance of races. Indiscriminate drug testing of various racehorses at various times in the hopes of yielding a positive test (ignoring for the moment that the drugs being administered were designed to be undetectable on drug tests) is not `reasonably likely' to have succeeded, or to have obviated the need for a wiretap. In sum, Seth Fishman has provided no justification for why the proposed alternative techniques would be likely to succeed, and not just be `theoretically possible,” the attorneys conclude.

Glavin and Considine are also seeking to have evidence obtained from wiretaps of the phones of Navarro, veterinarian Kristian Rhein and Alexander Chan, a veterinarian who worked with Rhein, suppressed.

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