Jorge Navarro, Horse Trainer: Doping Plea, Prison, and Deportation

Jorge Navarro is a former thoroughbred horse trainer from Panama who pleaded guilty in 2021 to running what federal prosecutors called the largest racehorse doping conspiracy ever charged by the U.S. Department of Justice. He was sentenced to five years in federal prison, ordered to pay more than $25.8 million in restitution, and released on June 18, 2025, after serving roughly three years and three months. Because he is not a U.S. citizen, he was transferred straight from federal prison to ICE custody and faces near-certain deportation to Panama.¹²

The Trainer Known as “Juice Man”

Navarro immigrated legally from Panama in the mid-1980s and built one of the most productive stables on the East Coast. Between 2008 and 2020 he won at a 28% clip, took seven straight training titles at Monmouth Park through 2019, and set the track’s single-season wins record in three consecutive years: 59 in 2016, 65 in 2017, and 66 in 2018.³ He also won the 2018–19 championship meet title at Gulfstream Park.²

The nickname “Juice Man” came from a viral video shot at Monmouth Park, in which owner Randal Gindi cheered on a horse trained by Navarro’s brother and yelled “The juice man!” Navarro embraced it. When the FBI later raided his tack room, agents seized a pair of slippers with “Juice Man” printed on them.² His career earnings totaled about $34.9 million, driven by graded stakes winners including Sharp Azteca, Private Zone, and El Deal.⁴

How the FBI Built the Case

The FBI came across the doping network in 2017 while investigating something else. What followed was a multiyear undercover operation led by agent Naushaun Richards, involving informants inside the Meadowlands racetrack, wiretaps on key targets, and drug analysis at a specialized lab in Hong Kong.⁵

On March 9, 2020, four federal indictments were unsealed in the Southern District of New York, charging 27 trainers, veterinarians, and drug distributors with manufacturing, distributing, and administering performance-enhancing drugs to racehorses across New York, New Jersey, Florida, Ohio, Kentucky, and the United Arab Emirates.⁶ The scheme, prosecutors said, was designed to push horses beyond their natural abilities while deceiving regulators and the betting public in order to collect purse money.

Intercepted calls captured the human cost. In one, co-conspirator Nicholas Surick told Michael Tannuzzo: “You know how many f—ing horses he [Navarro] f—ing killed and broke down that I made disappear….You know how much trouble he could get in…if they found out…the six horses we killed?”⁷

What Navarro Actually Did

The superseding indictment in United States v. Navarro et al. (S6 20-cr-00160) described what prosecutors labeled the “Navarro Conspiracy”: a coordinated program in which Navarro directed the procurement and administration of unregulated, misbranded PEDs to horses in his barn. The substances included blood-building erythropoietin (marketed as “Epogen”), a growth-factor compound called SGF-1000, customized analgesics that masked pain, and a joint drug known as “Red Acid.”⁸

Navarro sourced many of the drugs from Seth Fishman, a licensed veterinarian who ran an on-demand PED laboratory called Equestology and designed his products to evade standard drug tests. He also worked with harness trainer Christopher Oakes, who told Navarro in a January 2019 message that there was “zero chance” he would get caught.⁸

The drugs were harmful. Erythropoietin can thicken blood and cause cardiac failure. Customized analgesics hid injuries, pushing horses to overexert themselves and sometimes break down catastrophically. The broader scheme was linked to at least 20 horse deaths.⁵

XY Jet

The horse that became the public face of the scandal was XY Jet, a Florida-bred gelding with career earnings above $3 million. His signature win came in the $2.5 million Dubai Golden Shaheen at Meydan on March 30, 2019, worth $1.5 million to his connections.⁹

According to the indictment, Navarro personally administered erythropoietin (referred to on wiretaps as “monkey”) to XY Jet before the Dubai race, alongside other PEDs. He told co-defendant Marcos Zulueta he “gave it to him through 50 injections. I gave it to him through the mouth.” Before an earlier February 2019 race at Gulfstream Park, Navarro and Oakes conspired to smuggle a customized, test-evading PED called “Blocker” into the barn.⁹

XY Jet’s final race was the Mr. Prospector Stakes at Gulfstream on December 21, 2019, where he finished last. Less than three weeks later, in early January 2020, Navarro reported that the horse had died of an apparent heart attack. The indictments came roughly two months after that.⁹

Guilty Plea and Sentence

On August 11, 2021, Navarro pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to one felony count of conspiring to administer misbranded and adulterated drugs in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (18 U.S.C. § 371). A second count was dropped under the plea agreement. In open court he admitted doping XY Jet, War Story, Shancelot, Sharp Azteca, and other horses between 2016 and 2020.¹⁰

U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said Navarro’s success was built on “the systematic abuse of the animals under his control,” and called him a “reckless fraudster” who caused “endangerment at every level of the horse racing industry.”¹⁰

On December 17, 2021, Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil sentenced him to five years in prison. He was also ordered to pay $25,860,514 in restitution to victims and to forfeit $70,000 to the government, representing the value of the adulterated drugs he transacted. The victim schedule was filed under seal, so the specific recipients have not been made public.¹¹ The $25.8 million reflected purse winnings obtained through doping over nearly a decade of racing. As one industry report noted, it is “common in multi-million dollar fraud convictions for victims never to see even a penny of restitution,” and Navarro’s likely deportation makes collection even harder.¹²

Release, ICE Custody, and Deportation

Navarro reported to the Federal Correctional Institution in Miami on March 18, 2022, and was released on June 18, 2025, after serving about 65% of his five-year term. His early release came under the First Step Act of 2018, which lets inmates earn time credits by participating in recidivism-reduction programs.¹¹³

He did not walk free. On release from FCI Miami, he was transferred to the Krome North Service Processing Center, an ICE detention facility in Miami. His attorney, Jason Kreiss, had said before sentencing that deportation to Panama was “all but certain.” As of his release, the timing and outcome of removal proceedings were not public.²

His training license had been suspended by the New York State Gaming Commission within days of the 2020 indictment.¹⁴ Industry observers described his chances of ever training in the United States again as “slim to none,” since state regulators rarely license convicted felons whose crimes were directly tied to racing.¹⁵ He was 50 at the time of release. His father, Julian Canet, had died during the pandemic, and his wife, Jennifer, divorced him after his arrest.²

The Co-Defendants

The prosecution swept up more than 30 people. By late 2023, 19 had been sentenced to prison and five placed on probation.⁵ The key figures alongside Navarro:

Jason Servis, trainer of 2019 Kentucky Derby winner Maximum Security (later disqualified for interference), pleaded guilty to doping “virtually all” horses in his care and disguising the drug charges on veterinary bills as “Acupuncture & Chiropractic.” He was sentenced in July 2023 to four years in prison, with $311,760 in forfeiture, $163,932 in restitution, and a $30,000 fine, and had a scheduled release date of July 16, 2026.¹⁶
Seth Fishman, the veterinarian behind Equestology, was convicted at trial and sentenced in July 2022 to 132 months (11 years) — the longest sentence in the case. The Second Circuit affirmed his conviction in September 2025 but vacated the restitution and forfeiture orders.¹⁷
Lisa Giannelli, Fishman’s Equestology co-founder and salesperson, was convicted at trial and sentenced to 42 months and $900,000 in forfeiture.¹⁷
Harness trainer Nick Surick received five years and two months. Dr. Kristian Rhein, who worked with Servis, got three years and agreed to $729,716 in restitution.¹⁸

What Changed Because of the Case

The scale of the indictments broke a years-long stalemate over federal racing legislation. On December 22, 2020, nine months after the case was unsealed, Congress passed the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act as part of a year-end funding bill. Written by Kentucky Congressman Andy Barr, with backing from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Dianne Feinstein, HISA created an independent authority to set and enforce national anti-doping, medication, and track-safety rules.¹⁹ Before HISA, racing was regulated state by state, with inconsistent rules and enforcement. Those gaps were what Navarro and his co-conspirators used for years.

1
Thoroughbred Daily News. Jorge Navarro Released From Prison
2
Yahoo Sports. Jorge “Juice Man” Navarro Expected to Face Deportation
3
Monmouth Park. Trainer Jorge Navarro Notches 66th Winner of the Meeting to Set Monmouth Park Record
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The Guardian. Jorge Navarro Doping Scheme
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Syracuse.com. New York Racing Commission Ignored FBI Evidence for Years in Major Horse Doping Scandal
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CNN. Racehorse Doping Indictments
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Thoroughbred Daily News. Jason Servis, Jorge Navarro Face Federal Indictment in Doping Scheme
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U.S. District Court, SDNY. Opinion and Order on Motions to Dismiss, S6 20-cr-00160
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BloodHorse. Indictment Details Alleged Doping of X Y Jet
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BloodHorse. Navarro Pleads Guilty in Horse Doping Scheme
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Thoroughbred Daily News. Think You’re a Navarro Victim? Get in Line
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Thoroughbred Daily News. Feds Want Those Navarro Cheated to Collect $25M Restitution
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Horse Racing Nation. Reports: “Juice Man” Jorge Navarro Released Early From Prison
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BloodHorse. New York Regulator Suspends Servis, Navarro
15
Daily Racing Form. Navarro Released From Prison
16
U.S. Department of Justice. Thoroughbred Racehorse Trainer Jason Servis Sentenced to Four Years in Prison
17
Justia. United States v. Fishman, Nos. 22-1600, 22-2063, 23-6819
18
NBC New York. Thoroughbred Trainer, Head of NY Vet Clinic Plead Guilty to Horse Doping Scheme
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Office of Congressman Andy Barr. Congress Passes Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act