Court Appoints Monitor to Oversee Operations of the New York Racing Association Inc.

ANDREW C. HRUSKA, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, GLENDA PAPILLION, Acting Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service - Criminal Investigation, New York, and JAMES H. LAWRENCE, Commissioner, Nassau County Police Department, announced today that United States District Judge Arthur D. Spatt has appointed the law firm of Getnick & Getnick to serve as the monitor of the New York Racing Association Inc. ("NYRA") through July 1, 2005. Getnick & Getnick was appointed and will serve as NYRA's monitor pursuant to the terms of the deferred prosecution agreement between NYRA and the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York (the "Office") filed in U.S. District Court in Central Islip, New York, on December 11, 2003. Getnick & Getnick will monitor all aspects of NYRA's daily activities and operations to ensure that NYRA complies fully with the terms of the agreement and all relevant laws and regulations, and to deter and report upon unethical or illegal conduct by NYRA. In addition, Getnick & Getnick will suggest appropriate structural reforms that will help ensure NYRA's compliance with all federal, state and local laws and regulations after the expiration of the monitorship. The Order of Appointment filed today provides that the New York State Comptroller's Office will direct Getnick & Getnick regarding all aspects of the monitorship, subject to the oversight and supervision of the Office, and that Getnick & Getnick shall report to the Comptroller.

Getnick & Getnick is a Manhattan-based law firm with a dedicated monitoring, business integrity counseling, and anti-fraud litigation practice. That practice includes representing qui tam relators in federal False Claims Act whistleblower cases and undertaking IPSIG ("Independent, Private-Sector Inspector General") monitorship assignments. Getnick & Getnick has extensive monitorship experience, having served, among other things, as one of the four monitors selected to ensure that the cleanup of the World Trade Center site after the

September 11 attacks was as free of waste and corruption as possible. The two principal partners responsible for the NYRA monitorship will be Neil V. Getnick and Margaret J. Finerty. Mr. Getnick, a respected former Assistant District Attorney in New York County, is a leader in the IPSIG industry. Mr. Getnick speaks and publishes frequently on IPSIG-related topics and was instrumental in drafting a code of ethics for IPSIGs. Ms. Finerty is a former judge of the Criminal Court of the City of New York and had been Deputy Chief of the Frauds Bureau in the New York County District Attorney's office, in addition to other assignments during her 17-year tenure in that office. Getnick & Getnick fields a multi-disciplinary IPSIG team utilizing legal, investigative and forensic auditing skills. Investigative work on the monitorship will be handled by Hawthorne Investigations & Security, Inc. led by Joseph A. Pepe, a retired NYPD detective who also served as the Investigations Coordinator for the New York County District Attorney's office. Auditing work on the monitorship will be handled by P. Scutero & Associates, led by Patrick Scutero, a 28-year veteran of the IRS, who spent 21 years as a Special Agent in the Criminal Investigations Division.

The deferred prosecution agreement pursuant to which Getnick & Getnick was appointed followed the filing of an indictment charging NYRA, two former directors of NYRA's Pari-Mutuel Department and four former pari-mutuel tellers with participating in a scheme spanning 1980 through 1999 that enabled pari-mutuel employees to falsely deduct from their federal and state taxable income millions of dollars for purported unreimbursed employee expenses. Pursuant to the terms of the deferred prosecution agreement, NYRA accepted responsibility for its conduct as alleged in the indictment, pledged full cooperation with the government's investigation, and agreed to, among other things, (i) the payment of $3 million in fines and costs of prosecution, (ii) the restructuring of its management, and (iii) the appointment of an independent monitor by the Court to ensure full compliance with the agreement. If NYRA fully complies with the terms of the agreement, after eighteen months, the government will move to dismiss the charges against NYRA. The charges against the six individual defendants are still pending.

In announcing the appointment of the monitor, Acting United States Attorney ANDREW C. HRUSKA stated, "The appointment of the monitor is a significant step towards ensuring NYRA's full compliance with all federal, state and local laws, and purging the organization of the corrupt culture that sanctioned the tax evasion scheme." MR. HRUSKA thanked the New York State Comptroller's Office for its participation in this process.

IRS Acting Special Agent in Charge of Criminal Investigation GLENDA PAPPILLION stated, "We are pleased that this important step has been taken to ensure that NYRA stays on path to compliance."

The government's case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Suzanne Jaffe Bloom and Burton T. Ryan.