It has been reported that two trainers that were indicted as part of a federal probe into horse racing in Pennsylvania will plead guilty to lesser charges in county court.
An item by FOX 43 states that the charges relating to Thoroughbred trainers David Wells and Patricia Rogers have been transferred out of Federal Court by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In November of 2013, three trainers and a track employee at Penn National Racetrack in Grantville, PA were arrested and charged by the United States Attorney’s Office with fraud relating to horse racing.
The report states that Wells has agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of ‘rigging a publicly exhibited contest’ in Dauphin County court. The U.S. Attorney’s Office had initially alleged that Wells routinely injected prohibited substances into his racehorses, and that he routinely had prohibited items while at the racetrack.
Rogers’ case has also been moved to Dauphin County court. She now faces a pair of misdemeanor charges which include rigging publicly exhibited contest and attempting to rig a publicly exhibited contest.
The FOX 43 article has cited assistant U.S. attorney William Behe as saying that Wells will be pleading guilty to the reduced state charges and that the conditioner will be cooperating with the U.S. Government, thus the pending indictment against Wells will be dismissed.
The report states that under terms of a plea agreement which have yet to be finalized, Wells could face five years in prison as opposed to the 20-year sentence he was facing under the federal wire fraud charge that he and Rogers had been facing.
(With files from the FOX 43)
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