Two senior New York Racing Association officials have been charged in state court on fraud, conspiracy and other charges as part of a scheme to falsely reported the weights of some jockeys, an action that fraudulently misled bettors wagering on those races.
Among those named as un-indicted co-conspirators were several well-known jockeys, including Jose Santos, the jockey who rode Funny Cide to the 2003 Kentucky Derby winner\’s circle.
According to a report on bloodhorse.com, the 195-page indictment charges NYRA clerk of scales Mario Sclafani, 48, and assistant clerk of scales Braulio Baeza, a Racing Hall of Fame member who won the Kentucky Derby in 1963, for their roles in falsely reporting jockey weights in races at the New York tracks of Aqueduct, Belmont Park, and Saratoga.
Sclafani and Baeza have been under investigation by the New York State Attorney General’s office since December. Sclafani was arraigned Sept. 21 in Saratoga County court and pleaded not guilty. Baeza will be arraigned Oct. 6.
NYRA officials have fired Sclafani and Baeza, effective immediately. They\’d been suspended since Jan. 12, when the allegations were first announced. Timothy Kelly has been acting clerk of scales.
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“These two officials basically had one job to do, and that was to ensure that the weight of the jockeys was recorded accurately and then disclosed to bettors,” said New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer on bloodhorse.com.
The indictment also alleges Sclafani and Baeza conspired with five prominent jockeys–Santos, Robby Albarado, Herberto Castillo Jr., Ariel Smith, and Cornelio Velasquez–on 67 different occasions between June 2004 and December 2004 to allow them to ride when they weighed as much as 15 pounds over their announced weight.
“Co-conspirator jockeys then rode horses in races and thereby caused the horses to carry in excess of five pounds over the designated weight,” the indictment alleges. “In so doing, the defendants, acting in concert with the co-conspirator jockeys, fraudulently obtained compensation from the owners for riding and deprived bettors of hundreds of thousands of dollars by misrepresenting the jockey’s weights and thereby tricked said bettors in to betting on said horses.”
The races with the allegedly tampered weights occurred at all three NYRA tracks, and bettors placed more than $300,000 in win bets on horses in those races.
