Brett Pelling testifies in Brooks trial

 

Leading harness horse trainer Brett Pelling testified at the David Brooks trial on Thursday, Feb. 25. According to Newsday.com, Pelling testified that he received more than $900,000 to train horses for David Brooks. The checks were drawn on the account of TAP (Tactical Armor Products, according to the superseding indictment of David Brooks).

 

Tactical Armor Products (TAP), according to the superseding indictment, “was a privately owned company which supplied sewing services and armored plates to Point Blank and PACA.” Point Blank and PACA were two subsidiaries of DHB Industries, Inc., (DHB), which is the company that Brooks is accused of selling his stock in for $185 million as part of a “pump and dump” securities fraud. In addition, according to the superseding indictment, “In 2003, Point Blank and PACA purchased more than $29 million dollars worth of goods and services from TAP, generating more than $9 million in profit for TAP.” This is where the money came from to pay Brett Pelling to train horses, according to the government and Pelling’s testimony.

 

This testimony, like the previous testimony of Carl Conte (see harnessracing.com Brooks archive article dated 1/29/10), is to show the jury that Brooks used DHB Industries, Inc., TAP and other companies to pay for his multi-million dollar harness horse racing stable.

 

In his opening statement before the jury in this prosecution, assistant United States attorney Richard Lunger told the jury that Brooks had siphoned off about $14 million from TAP to pay for his horse racing business, including $6 million to purchase horses, $2 million to pay horse trainers (including Pelling, based on yesterday’s testimony), $1.8 million for horse “groomers” (the word used by the government) and $1 million in vet bills. TAP, according to the government, was owned by Terry Brooks, then the wife of defendant David Brooks.

 

In his opening statement before the jury, Kenneth Ravenell, the lead defense attorney for David Brooks, perhaps anticipating Pelling’s testimony, told the jury that TAP not only sewed vests for DHB, but also made “horse saddle pads and horse accessories.” In addition, Mr. Ravenell stated that TAP was owned by Terry Brooks and, since it was a privately-owned company (unlike DHB, which was publicly owned and traded on various stock exchanges), Terry Brooks could do whatever she wanted with the millions of dollars of profits that TAP made, including financing the horse business of David Brooks.

 

The trial resumes on Monday, March 1, at the federal courthouse in Central Islip, Long Island.