Former Olympic track and field superstar Marion Jones pleaded guilty Friday to federal criminal charges that she lied to investigators about using steroids before her five-medal performance at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, and about her involvement in an unrelated New York-based counterfeit check scheme.
The admission that she used steroids, made in U.S. District Court in White Plains, N.Y., represents a fall from grace for a woman who was once among the most celebrated athletes in the world.
For years, the 31-year-old sprinter persistently and passionately denied ever taking performance-enhancing drugs, but her statements in court on Friday not only make it probable she will be stripped of her five medals -- a women's track and field record -- but also cast grave new doubts over sports' greatest accomplishments in this steroid era.
Jones faces sentencing Jan. 11. The plea agreement stipulates that she receive no longer than a six-month sentence.
Outside court, Jones faced the media, tears streaming down her face, and announced she was "retiring from the sport of track and field, a sport which I deeply love."
"It is with a great amount of shame that I say I have betrayed your trust," Jones said. "I have let my country down."
In accepting a plea agreement, she also becomes the first athlete to be convicted who had ties to the BALCO scandal. A 2003 federal raid on the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative in Northern California forced illegal steroid use into the open. A number of athletes were swept up in the ensuing investigation, Jones and home run king Barry Bonds among them.
But for one magical summer, Jones won worldwide fame and Americans' hearts at the 2000 Olympics, winning gold in the 100- and 200-meter sprints and the 1,600 relay, and taking bronze in the 400 relay and the long jump. Those performances, now stained by her admission of steroid use, led the International Assn. of Athletics Federations to name her athlete of the year.
Arne Ljungqvist, chairman of the International Olympic Committee's medical commission, told The Times that Jones' being stripped of the medals is "a formality."
"They have her own statements, that's enough," he said. "They will take her medals."
The man leading the IOC's three-year-old investigation into Jones' involvement with the BALCO told the Associated Press that Jones' case could be finalized by the end of the year.
"With the admissions, the facts are quite clear," IOC vice president Thomas Bach of Germany said. The IOC executive board is scheduled to meet Dec. 10-12 in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Other track records Jones achieved while doping could be vacated in a review by USA Track and Field and the IAAF, said a U.S. Olympic Committee spokesman.
In addition, the USOC is urging Jones to return her medals.
Jones has angered many officials because of her steadfast denials. After the BALCO raid, she hired a team of attorneys and publicists to wage an intense public-relations campaign that she "never, ever" used drugs to boost her performance.
She repeated those claims last year after an initial test that found she had tested positive for the blood-doping drug erythropoietin (EPO) was refuted by a negative "B" sample.
Peter Ueberroth, USOC chairman, said, "Ms. Jones should immediately step forward and return the Olympic medals she won while competing in violation of the rules."
In a letter distributed to friends and family members, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, Jones acknowledged that she took BALCO's previously undetectable designer steroid known as "the clear" at the urging of her former track coach, Trevor Graham, and then covered up that fact. She said Graham told her "the clear" was flaxseed oil, the same explanation Bonds has given.
Graham already has been indicted for lying to federal prosecutors, and his trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 26. Jones is expected to be called as a prosecution witness.
Prosecutors said in court records released Friday that Jones lied to federal agents in the BALCO case about never having seen "the clear." When the agents asked her if she had ever ingested the banned substance, Jones lied again.
In the New York case, prosecutors investigated Jones' acceptance of a fraudulent $25,000 check given to her by her ex-boyfriend and world-class sprinter Tim Montgomery, another former BALCO client who fathered one of Jones' children.
Jones' financial problems came to light this year in a Texas lawsuit won by her former coach, Dan Pfaff. In an April declaration, Jones claimed she had "total liquid assets" of $2,000.
Jones had been ranked the No. 6 most marketable athlete in the U.S. in 2001, earning an estimated $3 million annually with endorsement deals with General Motors, Panasonic and Nike among others. She was dumped by Nike as an endorser in 2005.
"We are saddened, shocked and disappointed by the fact that while we believed and trusted in Marion we also were deceived," Nike spokesman Dean Stoyer said.
