“Marion Jones was sentenced Friday to six months in prison for lying about using steroids and a check-fraud scam, despite her plea that she not be separated from her two young children ‘even for a short period of time.’
“‘I ask you to be as merciful as a human being can be,’ said Jones, who cried on her husband’s shoulder after she was sentenced…
“As she beseeched the judge for a lighter sentence, the disgraced former Olympic champion talked at length about her children, including the infant son she’s still nursing.”–SI.com, 1/11/08
Throughout the family law system and to a lesser degree the criminal law system, mothers are able to avoid taking full responsibility for their actions, misdeeds, or crimes by hiding behind their children. Disgraced former Olympian Marion Jones tries the same shtick here, though (surprisingly) it didn’t work too well. If she were white and as pretty as Debra Lafave she probably could have avoided jail altogether.
The full story is below. Thanks to Ronald, a reader, for sending it to me.
Jones hit with six-month sentence
SI.com
January 11, 2008
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — Marion Jones was sentenced Friday to six months in prison for lying about using steroids and a check-fraud scam, despite her plea that she not be separated from her two young children “even for a short period of time.”
“I ask you to be as merciful as a human being can be,” said Jones, who cried on her husband’s shoulder after she was sentenced.
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas gave her the maximum under her plea deal “because of the need for general deterrence and the need to promote respect for the law.”
As she beseeched the judge for a lighter sentence, the disgraced former Olympic champion talked at length about her children, including the infant son she’s still nursing.
“My passion in life has always been my family,” Jones said. “I know the day is quickly approaching when my boys ask me about these current events. I intend to be honest and forthright … and guide them into not making the same mistakes.”
The sentence completes a stunning fall for the woman who was once the most celebrated female athlete in the world. She won three gold and two bronze medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
After long denying she ever had used performance-enhancing drugs, Jones admitted last October she lied to federal investigators in November 2003, acknowledging she took the designer steroid “the clear” from September 2000 to July 2001. “The clear” has been linked to BALCO, the lab at the center of the steroids scandal in professional sports.
She also admitted lying about her knowledge of the involvement of Tim Montgomery, the father of her older son Monty, in a scheme to cash millions of dollars worth of stolen or forged checks. Montgomery and several others have been convicted in that scam. They include Jones’ former coach Olympic champion Steve Riddick, who was to be sentenced later Friday.
After her guilty pleas last October, Jones made an apologetic and teary-eyed statement outside court, saying, “It’s with a great amount of shame that I stand before you and tell you that I have betrayed your trust.”
“I have been dishonest, and you have the right to be angry with me,” she added. “I have let (my family) down. I have let my country down, and I have let myself down. … I want to ask for your forgiveness for my actions, and I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”
Jones returned her Olympic medals — golds in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 1,600-meter relay and bronzes in the long jump and 400-meter relay — even before the International Olympic Committee ordered her to do so and wiped her results from the books.
Jones was among the many athletes who testified in 2003 before a grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative.
On the day she pleaded guilty, prosecutors said a 2003 search warrant at BALCO uncovered ledgers, purchases, doping calendars, and various blood-test results connected to Jones and former coach Trevor Graham.
She took EPO, human growth hormone and THG using drops and injections, according to the court documents that show use in 2000 and 2001.