NEW YORK, Ny. — A horse trainer from the Eastern Panhandle is heading to federal prison in connection with a doping scheme meant to improve the performance of his horses.
Charles Town native Jason Servis, 66, was sentenced Wednesday in a New York federal court to four years in prison after pleading guilty in Dec. 2022 to two counts related to the use of banned substances including clenbuterol, a bronchodilator, and SGF-1000, a chemical compound that was said to promote stamina and endurance.
Servis’ horse Maximum Security was disqualified as the 2019 Kentucky Derby winner for interference with other horses.
Servis was the highest-profile defendant among more than two dozen people charged in March 2020 following an FBI investigation into performance-enhancing-drug use in horse racing in the United States.
Manhattan Federal District Court Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil said that Servis had “put the lives of the horses and the jockeys who rode them at risk” and that he “tried to gain an unfair advantage.”
Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement, “Today’s sentence sends a clear signal to those in the racehorse industry that no one is above the law.”
Servis was ordered to pay more than $163,000 in restitution and a $30,000 fine in addition to his prison sentence. He will report to prison Nov. 1.