Marion Jones sentenced to 6 months in prison

Marion Jones was sentenced Friday to six months in prison for lying about using steroids and a check-fraud scam, despite beseeching the judge 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.

The disgraced former Olympic champion was ordered to surrender March 11 to begin her term.

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas said he gave her the maximum under the plea deal to send a message to athletes who have abused drugs and overlooked the values of “hard work, dedication, teamwork and sportsmanship.”

“Athletes in society have an elevated status, they entertain, they inspire, and perhaps, most important, they serve as role models,” Karas said.

Later Friday, Karas was to sentence Jones’ former coach, Olympic champion Steve Riddick, who was convicted in the check-fraud scam.

The 31-year-old Jones also was given two years’ probation and supervised release, during which she will be required to perform 800 hours of community service.

“As everyone can imagine, I’m very disappointed today,” Jones told reporters outside court. “But as I stood in front of all of you for years in victory, I stand in front of you today. I stand for what is right.”

“I respect the judge’s order, and I truly hope that people will learn from my mistakes,” added Jones.

The judge said Jones’ community service requirement would take advantage of her “eloquence, strength and her ability to work with kids.”

It was her children that worried Jones as she pleaded for a lighter sentence, talking at length about her two boys, 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.

“The revelation that one of the sport’s biggest stars took performance-enhancing drugs and repeatedly lied about it, in addition to being a party to fraud, has no silver lining,” USA Track & Field president Bill Roe and CEO Craig Masback said in a statement. “But, it is a vivid morality play that graphically illustrates the wages of cheating in any facet of life, on or off the track.”

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.”

-MSNBC.com

 

Pregnant Marine is dead, comrade sought

A pregnant Marine missing for nearly a month is dead, and investigators were seeking a fellow Marine she had accused of raping her, authorities said Friday.

Authorities had not recovered the body of 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Maria Frances Lauterbach, but they believed she was buried in a shallow grave in a residential area of coastal Onslow County, Sheriff Ed Brown said.

Military and civilian investigators were seeking the key suspect in the death, Cpl. Cesar Armando Lauren, who had declined to meet with investigators and apparently left the area, Brown said.

“They don’t know where he is,” Brown said of Lauren’s lawyers.

Lauterbach met with military prosecutors in December to discuss pursuing rape charges against Lauren, said Kevin Marks, the supervisory special agent for Naval Criminal Investigative Service at Camp Lejeune. He said prosecutors believed they had enough evidence to argue that the case should go to a court martial, the military equivalent of a trial.

In court papers filed this week, prosecutors said the anticipated birth of the baby “might provide evidentiary credence to charges she lodged with military authorities that she was sexually assaulted by a senior military person.”

Brown said Lauren refused to speak with detectives, on the advice of his attorneys. Authorities said they didn’t consider Lauren a flight risk until Friday, because they had information the pair carried on a “friendly relationship” after she reported the assault to military authorities.

The sheriff hinted Friday morning that a positive outcome was still possible. But that was before detectives received news of Lauterbach’s death from an unidentified female witness who is a former Marine, he said.

-yahoo.com