Marion Jones, the track and field star from Thousand Oaks who won five medals and worldwide fame at the 2000 Olympic Games in Australia, is expected today to become the most significant athlete to admit to using performance-enhancing drugs, after years of fiercely denying it.
Such an admission could lead to Jones' being stripped of those medals.
The 31-year-old sprinter is scheduled to appear in U.S. Southern District Court in New York to plead guilty to charges connected to her steroid use before the 2000 Games, a federal law enforcement source told the Associated Press on Thursday. The official would not provide details and spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
The apparent plea bargain comes after years of accusations that Jones had boosted her performances with drugs, including an eyewitness account from Victor Conte, founder of Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, that she used a steroid known as "the clear" and knew what it was. In 2003, BALCO's offices in Burlingame, Calif., were raided by federal investigators, and Conte later pleaded guilty to steroid distribution. Swept up in that scandal were a number of athletes, baseball star Barry Bonds and Jones among them.
In addition, Jones delivered a letter of apology to friends and family members, the Washington Post reported online Thursday. The newspaper said that in the letter, which it had not seen, Jones said she plans to plead guilty to two counts of lying to federal agents about her drug use and, in an unrelated case, for accepting a fraudulent check.
In the letter, which was read to the newspaper by a person who had received a copy of it, Jones reportedly said she indeed took BALCO's steroid known as "the clear" for two years beginning in 1999. A person familiar with Jones' legal situation and who requested anonymity confirmed the relevant facts in the letter, the Post said.
Attempts by The Times to reach Jones and her sprinter husband Obadele Thompson were unsuccessful, as were attempts to contact her personal attorney, Rich Nichols, her agent Charlie Wells and her former coaches, including Trevor Graham.
Darryl Seibel, a spokesman for the U.S. Olympic Committee, said the organization will intensely review any such plea bargain and could demand Jones return her medals.
"Doping is cheating and our position is unequivocal. It will absolutely not be tolerated," he said. "Any athlete who chooses to cheat is making a decision that is a complete contradiction to what the Olympic movement stands for."
Conte has long maintained Jones used performance-enhancing drugs. In a 2004 television interview, Conte said he personally injected Jones with human growth hormone before she raced at the 2001 Mount San Antonio College Relays in Walnut.
The sprinter, whose exploits at the Sydney Games caught the world's attention after she won gold in the 100 and 200 meters, a gold and a bronze from two relay teams and a bronze in the long jump, wasted no time in filing a $25-million defamation suit against Conte. That lawsuit was settled last year.
"I gave Marion five separate drugs -- the clear, the cream, insulin, growth hormone and EPO -- after first meeting her in August 2000," Conte told The Times on Thursday. "She used all five before the Olympic Games; she had full knowledge. If she doesn't come forward and admit to using those five drugs, she's not making a full disclosure.
"A Super Bowl linebacker I know once told me, 'Once an athlete starts taking drugs, they become a liar.' I've maintained Marion Jones used performance-enhancing drugs before, during and after the Olympic Games of 2000. I told the truth, and I continue to tell the truth.
"Marion made some decisions and there are consequences to those decisions," Conte said. "That's what she will now have to suffer. I feel sad for Marion, and her family, who will join her in that suffering."
In the letter, Jones said she didn't immediately know she was taking steroids, that Graham told her "the clear" was the nutritional supplement flaxseed oil and that she trusted him, according to the Post. Jones also said she "never thought for one second" the substance she was dropping under her tongue was a performance-enhancing drug until after she left Graham's Raleigh, N.C.-based training camp at the end of 2002.
Graham later set up the BALCO raid by anonymously mailing the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency a syringe of "the clear." More than a dozen track athletes have been linked to BALCO, as have baseball stars Gary Sheffield and Jason Giambi and boxer Shane Mosley.
Graham is awaiting a federal trial in November on counts of lying to federal agents.
"Red flags should have been raised when [Graham] told me not to tell anyone about" the supplement program, Jones said in the letter, according to the Post. The newspaper also said she admitted in the letter that she noticed changes in how her body felt and how she was able to recover from workouts.
