Former Olympic sprint champion Marion Jones should serve as much as six months in prison for lying to investigators about her use of steroids and about her role in an elaborate check-fraud scheme, prosecutors said Friday.
In a memo filed in federal court in New York, prosecutors said Jones had told a series of "calculated lies" about her drug use in an effort to fend off the federal drug agents who were investigating her role in the BALCO scandal.
Jones also made what the government called "baseless attacks" on those who suspected the truth about her use of a long list of banned drugs, the prosecutors told Judge Kenneth Karas.
The prosecutors said Jones continued to lie to investigators after she offered to become a government witness against other accused members of a multimillion dollar check fraud ring that included onetime world sprint champion Tim Montgomery.
If they had gone undetected, her lies probably would wrecked the government's prosecution of the other fraud suspects, prosecutors Daniel W. Levy and E. Dana Perry wrote.
Jones pleaded guilty in October to lying to federal agents about her drug use and involvement in the fraud scheme. She is set for sentencing Jan. 11.
To demonstrate the extent of Jones' use of banned drugs, the government filed a set of doping calendars and ledgers that were seized in a raid on the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative in Burlingame in 2003.
An accompanying affidavit by IRS criminal investigator Jeff Novitzky said the documents showed Jones regularly used the undetectable BALCO designer steroid known as "the clear," along with human growth hormone, insulin and the blood-doping drug erythropoietin, or EPO. To ensure that she could beat tough Olympic drug tests, Jones had her blood tested for steroids by a private laboratory, the documents showed.
The documents reflected Jones' use of the BALCO drugs in September 2000, when she was winning five medals, three of them gold, at the Olympics in Sydney.
Among her responses to suspicions that she had used performance-enhancing drugs, Jones denounced the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which investigated her role in BALCO, as a "kangaroo court." Actually, the government wrote, Jones was engaged in "a concentrated, organized, long-term effort to use these substances for her personal gain, a scenario wholly inconsistent with anything other than her denials being calculated lies."
Jones also lied to the government last year when she was questioned about her role in the check fraud scheme. According to the government, the scheme involved dozens of suspects, including Montgomery and Steve Riddick, Jones' coach. The suspects defrauded banks by depositing large counterfeit checks - in amounts up to $1 million - into business bank accounts, then moving the money to other accounts before the fraud was discovered.
In interviews with the government, Jones denied that Montgomery, her boyfriend, was involved in check fraud. She also said she knew nothing about a fraudulent $25,000 check Montgomery had received in 2006. She also denied knowledge of a fraudulent $200,000 check Montgomery had deposited in 2005, although in truth she was a co-signor on the account.
Initially the government believed Jones' stories and had planned to use her as a witness against the other suspects. "It is difficult to articulate how catastrophic" Jones' false testimony would have been to the government's case had her lies gone undetected, the government wrote.
SFGate.com..
In a memo filed in federal court in New York, prosecutors said Jones had told a series of "calculated lies" about her drug use in an effort to fend off the federal drug agents who were investigating her role in the BALCO scandal.
Jones also made what the government called "baseless attacks" on those who suspected the truth about her use of a long list of banned drugs, the prosecutors told Judge Kenneth Karas.
The prosecutors said Jones continued to lie to investigators after she offered to become a government witness against other accused members of a multimillion dollar check fraud ring that included onetime world sprint champion Tim Montgomery.
If they had gone undetected, her lies probably would wrecked the government's prosecution of the other fraud suspects, prosecutors Daniel W. Levy and E. Dana Perry wrote.
Jones pleaded guilty in October to lying to federal agents about her drug use and involvement in the fraud scheme. She is set for sentencing Jan. 11.
To demonstrate the extent of Jones' use of banned drugs, the government filed a set of doping calendars and ledgers that were seized in a raid on the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative in Burlingame in 2003.
An accompanying affidavit by IRS criminal investigator Jeff Novitzky said the documents showed Jones regularly used the undetectable BALCO designer steroid known as "the clear," along with human growth hormone, insulin and the blood-doping drug erythropoietin, or EPO. To ensure that she could beat tough Olympic drug tests, Jones had her blood tested for steroids by a private laboratory, the documents showed.
The documents reflected Jones' use of the BALCO drugs in September 2000, when she was winning five medals, three of them gold, at the Olympics in Sydney.
Among her responses to suspicions that she had used performance-enhancing drugs, Jones denounced the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which investigated her role in BALCO, as a "kangaroo court." Actually, the government wrote, Jones was engaged in "a concentrated, organized, long-term effort to use these substances for her personal gain, a scenario wholly inconsistent with anything other than her denials being calculated lies."
Jones also lied to the government last year when she was questioned about her role in the check fraud scheme. According to the government, the scheme involved dozens of suspects, including Montgomery and Steve Riddick, Jones' coach. The suspects defrauded banks by depositing large counterfeit checks - in amounts up to $1 million - into business bank accounts, then moving the money to other accounts before the fraud was discovered.
In interviews with the government, Jones denied that Montgomery, her boyfriend, was involved in check fraud. She also said she knew nothing about a fraudulent $25,000 check Montgomery had received in 2006. She also denied knowledge of a fraudulent $200,000 check Montgomery had deposited in 2005, although in truth she was a co-signor on the account.
Initially the government believed Jones' stories and had planned to use her as a witness against the other suspects. "It is difficult to articulate how catastrophic" Jones' false testimony would have been to the government's case had her lies gone undetected, the government wrote.
SFGate.com..
