Today via the DRF:
"A U.S. District Court judge has ordered that an indictment against a Pennsylvania trainer be dismissed...... The indictment stated that the trainers had allegedly given illegal
substances to horses or intended to give illegal substances to horses as
part of what the indictment claimed was a scheme to fix horse races. In his ruling, Caldwell said the indictment against Webb did not
contain any evidence that the trainer had actually bet on any of horses
that had been given illegal substances or urged anyone else to bet on
any of the horses."
We don't know the logistics of the case and we certainly will not comment on whether this gentleman is guilty or innocent of anything, but why do judges rulings think we don't matter?
We may have bet some of these races. Money may have been taken from us.
If a Fortune 500 CEO cooks the books would the judge say because he does not own stock in the company and did not profit from it we'll let him or her cook the books?
What about other horse owners? What about other trainers - a trainer who wins races illegally (allegedly), gets press, win percentage headlines, is noticed and gets new clients (possibly some of yours).
When a race is "fixed" there are victims. The trainer who is supposedly doing the fixing does not need to bet on his horse to make financial gain, or hurt others.
That's our opinion. What's yours?
2 comments:
If the judge had no evidence that the CEO "cooked the books" (rather than just made some bad decisions that may or may not have cost the investors money) the judge would do the same thing and throw out the indictment -- no matter how loudly the investors cried that the CEO was "doing it on purpose". Based on your reasoning, the mutual clerk that overpaid Wes Welker should be taken from the track in handcuffs. (And, she would be if she was overpaying and getting a kick back!) I agree that the rules in place should be enforced and that the penalty should be severe enough that it minimizes the wrongdoing. But a judge following the rules of law is not putting horseplayers on the "bottom of the pole". (IMHO of course.)
The case can still be tried in state court. The US attorney general did not have the evidence to back the federal charges according to the judge.
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