Scott Robinson, a 46-year-old man from Tampa, Florida, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for his role in a years-long scheme to sell adulterated and misbranded drugs to racehorse trainers and owners in New York.
According to the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Audrey Strauss, Robinson created and profited from a system designed to exploit racehorses in the pursuit of speed and prize money, risking their safety and wellbeing. He sold unsanitary, misbranded, and adulterated drugs, and misled and deceived regulators and law enforcement in the process.
Robinson pled guilty to a one-count Information on September 16, 2020, before U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken, who also imposed today’s sentence. In addition to his prison sentence, Robinson was sentenced to three years of supervised release and forfeiture of $3,832,318.90.
The scheme, which lasted from at least 2011 to March 2020, involved Robinson conspiring with others to manufacture, sell, and ship millions of dollars’ worth of adulterated and misbranded equine drugs, including performance-enhancing drugs (“PEDs”) intended to be administered to racehorses for the purpose of improving those horses’ race performances in order to win races and obtain prize money.
Robinson sold these drugs through several direct-to-consumer websites designed to appeal to racehorse trainers and owners, including, among others, “horseprerace.com.” He contributed to the conspiracy by, among other things, sourcing chemicals used to create custom PEDs that were advertised and sold; falsely labeling, packaging, and shipping those PEDs to customers across the country, including in the Southern District of New York; and collecting, reporting, and responding to employee and customer complaints regarding the misbranded and adulterated products advertised and sold online.
The drugs distributed through Robinson’s websites were manufactured in non-FDA registered facilities and carried significant risks to the animals affected through the administration of those illicit PEDs. In 2016, Robinson received a complaint regarding the effect of his unregulated drugs on a customer’s horse: “starting bout 8 hours after I give the injection and for about 36 hours afterwards both my horses act like they are heavily sedated, can barely walk. Could I have a bad bottle of medicine, I’m afraid to give it anymore since this has happened three times.” Robinson wrote simply, “here is another one.”
Ms. Strauss praised the outstanding investigative work of the New York FBI Office’s Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force and its support of the FBI’s Integrity in Sports and Gaming Initiative. She also thanked the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, the New York State Police, and the New York City Police Department for their support of this investigation, and the Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Administration for their assistance and expertise.
This case is being handled by the Office’s Money Laundering and Transnational Criminal Enterprises Unit.
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Key Facts
- State: New York
- Category: Drug Trafficking|Fraud & Financial Crimes|Violent Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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