Disgraced Olympic sprinter Marion Jones is behind bars. The former gold medal winner has started her six-month jail sentence, after lying to federal investigators about her steroid use.
A spokeswoman for the US Bureau of Prisons revealed the athlete had checked into a Texas jail on Friday.
“I can confirm that she arrived at the Federal Medical Center-Carswell in Fort Worth just before noon,” Traci Billingsley said.
Jones, 32, was sentenced to six months in jail and two years’ probation in January, after she confessed she had lied about her steroid use and a check-fraud scheme.
A federal judge in White Plains, New York, told her she must begin her sentence by March 11.
The sprinter, who is married with a four-year-old son, used steroids distributed by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative. This is the same lab that supplied the performance-enhancing drugs to athletes including New York Yankees star Jason Giambi.
But Jones is the first professional sports star to receive prison time over the offence.
The athlete won five medals at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, but has been stripped of them all after confessing she used steroids.
Until October last year the US sprinter had vehemently denied ever using performance enhancing drugs. But on October 5m she held a press conference on the steps of a New York courthouse and admitted she had lied to the world.
In January, during an interview with US talk show host Oprah Winfrey, Jones played down her steroid use and said she “made a mistake”.
“I have no regrets for doing what I did on October 5 and pleading guilty and admitting to the world that I lied, that I made mistakes,” she said. “Everybody makes mistakes. I truly think that a person’s character is determined by their admission of their mistakes. Beyond that, what do I do about it? How can I change the lives of people? How can I use my story to change the life of a young person? To me now it’s really about just looking forward, looking to the future, trying to make this wrong a right.”
[Source: Associated Press]
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