Harness Trainer Christopher Oakes Sentenced To 3 Years In Federal Doping Case

Oakes’s Sentence Caps a Month of Convictions and Sentences in Ongoing Doping Investigations

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that defendant CHRISTOPHER OAKES received a sentence of thirty-six months in prison today for his role in the felony drug misbranding and adulteration charges arising from this Office’s investigation of the abuse of animals through the use of performance enhancing drugs and as charged in United States v. Navarro et al., 20 Cr. 160 (MKV). OAKES’s sentence followed the February 24, 2022, sentencing of thoroughbred trainer MARCOS ZULUETA to a term of thirty-three months in prison, and the guilty plea of harness trainer RICK DANE, JR., on February 18, 2022. OAKES and ZULUETA were each sentenced by U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, who will preside over the sentencing of DANE on June 21, 2022.