Diamondbacks Bullpen

[moviegeekjn]

No surprise to anyone who's read Game of Shadows (since she stars prominently there along with Barry), but Marion Jones failed her drug test at the U.S. championships in June, according to ESPN

[TAP]

One step closer to Barry's conviction. Both Jones and Bonds were major players in Game of Shadows.
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Jones Admits to Doping and Enters Guilty Plea

Marion Jones repeatedly answered the judge’s questions by saying, “Yes, I understand,” as he explained the ramifications of her guilty plea. The prosecutors have recommended a sentence of no more than six months, according to the agreement. The maximum sentence is five years.

She will be sentenced in January. The International Olympic Committee has indicated it will not wait until then to move to strip her of the five medals she won — including three gold — at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. With her performance that summer, she became the first woman to win five medals in track and field at the same Olympics.

Jones, 31, was released after yielding her United States passport and promising to yield her passport from Belize, her mother’s native country. But in her emotional speech outside the courthouse, she made it clear that she believed she had lost far more.

“It is with a great amount of shame that I stand before you and tell you that I have betrayed your trust,” she said, referring to her fans and supporters. She added: “You have the right to be angry with me. I have let them down, I have let my country down and I have let myself down.”

Her guilty plea, as well as her admission in court that she used performance-enhancing drugs provided by her former coach Trevor Graham, were big developments in the government’s case against Graham for making false statements to federal agents. Graham’s trial is scheduled to begin in November.

Jones said in court that from September 2000 until July 2001, Graham gave her a substance he told her was flaxseed oil. But after she stopped training with him in 2001, she said she realized it had been a performance-enhancing drug. By the time she was interviewed in the Balco investigation in November 2003, Jones said, she knew it was the designer steroid THG, known as the clear. But she had denied recognizing the substance and denied taking it in that Balco interview.

“Both were lies,” Jones said.

Perhaps the biggest consequences of Jones’s sworn statements in court will be the damage they do to Graham, who has repeatedly denied providing his athletes with performance-enhancing drugs.

If Jones is called to testify at Graham’s trial, she can no longer invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination because she waived that with her guilty plea.

“The federal government will vigorously prosecute individuals who provide false statements to its agents,” Scott N. Schools, the interim United States attorney in the Northern District of California, said in a written statement. “Individuals who lie to federal agents interfere with the government’s ability to investigate criminal conduct and undermine the efficiency of government investigations.”

Telephone messages left for Graham’s lawyers were not returned.

Last year, Jones fell under renewed drug-testing scrutiny when she tested positive for the blood-boosting drug EPO. The test was not pursued, however, when the B sample was negative for the drug and did not corroborate the A sample. After that, Jones defiantly denied ever having used drugs.

The Olympic sports community reacted with firm condemnation of Jones.

“Her admission is long overdue and underscores the shame and dishonor that are inherent with cheating,” the United States Olympic Committee chairman, Peter Ueberroth, said in a statement. “As further recognition of her complicity in this matter, Ms. Jones should immediately step forward and return the Olympic medals she won while competing in violation of the rules.”

The more immediate issue, though, was Jones’s role in the continuation of the Balco case, which had seen few developments in recent months.

The case has resulted in the guilty pleas of six others: Balco’s founder and president, Victor Conte Jr.; James Valente, the former vice president of Balco; Greg Anderson, Barry Bonds’s former trainer; Remi Korchemny, a track coach; Patrick Arnold, a chemist; and Troy Ellerman, a defense lawyer.

The cyclist Tammy Thomas, who also denied using steroids, was charged last year with three counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. No trial date has been set.

Bonds, baseball’s career home run leader, remains under investigation on the suspicion that he lied to a federal grand jury about his use of steroids. Anderson is in jail for contempt of court for refusing to testify about Bonds.

Lynn Zinser and Michael S. Schmidt / The New York Times
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Arizona Diamondbacks
- 2007 National League West Champions
- 2007 NLDS Winners
- 2008 World Champions

[Hammerofthegods32]

Not a surprise, but so disappointing. But, if it leads to Bonds, so be it.
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[TAP]

From Leno's monologue tonight:

In a sad story today, Olympic Gold Medalist Marion Jones admitted in court to using steroids to cheat her way to victory. You know where you end up when you go that route....... the baseball hall of fame.
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Arizona Diamondbacks
- 2007 National League West Champions
- 2007 NLDS Winners
- 2008 World Champions