A Kentucky man with ties to Nicholasville was sentenced to 30 months in prison for selling performance enhancing drugs used in professional horse racing, according to news reports

Manhattan US Attorney Audrey Strauss said Michael Kegley Jr. “promoted and sold unregulated performance-enhancing substances intended for use by those engaged in fraud and unconscionable animal abuse in the world of professional horse racing,” according to news reports.

Kegley had been sales director at Medivet Equine, a Nicholasville company that made a now-banned performance-enhancing drug the government said causes deaths and injuries in thoroughbreds, according to Courier-Journal.

Kegley admitted to promoting and selling performance-enhancing drugs for use on thoroughbred racehorses, Bloodhorse magazine reports. Kegley was sentenced to 30 months in prison Thursday (Jan. 6) by US District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, according to the magazine. Included as part of Kegley’s sentence, a money judgment of $3,310,490.

Kegley was among a large group of individuals indicted almost two years ago for wrongfully peddling or using performance enhancing drugs in the Thoroughbred racing industry, according to the magazine.

Kegley had been charged with a conspiracy count that carries a maximum term of five years. This charge was later dismissed, the magazine reports
Thursday’s (Jan. 6) hearing Thursday followed a plea of guilty to one count of drug adulteration and misbranding distribution, which carries a maximum sentence of three years, according to the magazine.

Sentence guidelines called for 30-36 months incarceration, which was part of the plea bargain. Kegley’s attorney, Scott C. Cox, requested one year of home incarceration, according to the Magazine.