Tearful Jones pleads guilty, asks forgiveness

Jones

The powerful sprinter asked for forgiveness from her family, friends and fans and said she was resigning from track and field sports.

"It is with a great amount of shame that I stand before you and tell you I have betrayed your trust," she said outside the US Southern District Court in White Plains, New York.

Jones, 31, plead guilty to two counts of making false statements to federal agents, the US Justice Department said late Friday. Aside from the doping probe, one of those false statements stemmed from her role in a multi-million-dollar check-fraud scheme involving former boyfriend and fellow sprinter Tim Montgomery.

"Making these false statements to federal agents was an incredibly stupid thing for me to do and I am responsible fully for my actions. I have no one to blame but myself for what i have done," she said in broadcast remarks.

The admission of guilt by Jones, whose powerful athletic performances have dazzled fans and won her worldwide acclaim, came after years of denials that she had taken performance-enhancing drugs.

Jones faces up to 10 years in prison and a sentencing hearing was set for January. She stands to be stripped of her three gold medals and two bronze medals won in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, the International Olympics Committee (IOC) said earlier Friday. The statute of limitations for such actions is eight years.

Jones could also lose other athletic championship medals and prize money won since the 1990s.

President George W Bush, who denounced steroid use in his annual State of the Union speech in 2004, said he was saddened by the news.

Bush is concerned "that any professional athlete or any athlete or anyone who aspires to be a professional athlete thinks that they have to use performance-enhancing drugs in order to achieve their goals," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters earlier Friday.

Twice during her remarks to reporters, Jones apologized to her mother, who stood by her side. She said she had let down her fans, young supporters, the track and field association, her closest friends and "the most classy family a person could ever hope for."

"My mother, my husband, my children ... my brother and his family, my uncle, the rest of my extended family, I want you to know I have been dishonest ... and you have the right to be angry with me," she said.

"I let them down, I let my country down, I let myself down," she said. "I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me."

According to the Justice Department, Jones lied to agents in 2003 about supplements that had been given to her by her coach, Trevor Graham, and which she used for about a year before the 2000 Olympics.

Graham told her it was flaxseed oil, she said in a letter to family and friends that became public late Thursday through The Washington Post. She wrote that "red flags should have been raised" when Graham told her to keep the nutritional supplement a secret.

Though she didn't know she was using a banned substance at the time, Jones admitted she had been aware when she spoke to federal investigators in 2003 - where she denied ever taking steroids.

Her admission of guilt was the first conviction in a group of athletes and coaches who were connected to the San Francisco-based BALCO lab, which produced the liquid, oral steroid known as THG or "the clear."

In 2003, 40 US athletes were summoned to testify before a grand jury about the company, BALCO, which produced a new steroid that had been undetectable in doping tests.

The circle of athletes included US sprinter Kelli White, baseball slugger Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants, top world shot-putter Kevin Toth and others.

When BALCO lab founder Victor Conte connected Jones to the scandal, saying he had provided her with the steroids, she sued him for 25 million dollars for defamation of character. The case was settled out of court.

"I have accomplished what I have accomplished because of my God-given abilities and hard work," Jones insisted in videotaped remarks in recent years.

In Sydney, Jones won gold for the 100m and 200m races, and for the 4x400m relay; and bronze medals in the long jump and 4x100m relay. She also has five world titles between 1997 and 2001.

The IOC and the ruling athletics body IAAF said on Friday they were awaiting further details and will investigate if Jones formally admits to doping.

Jones tested positive in June 2006 for the banned performance-enhancer Erythropoietin (EPO), but the B-sample tested negative, clearing her of doping.

In November 2006, Graham was charged with making false statements to federal agents in connection with a doping probe. A string of Graham's athletes have tested positive for doping, and in August 2006, athletes trained by him were banned from competing in the final Golden League series stop in Berlin.

Jones' former boyfriend and ex-100-metre world-record holder Tim Montgomery had to serve a two-year doping ban based on evidence from the BALCO case, without a positive test. Jones' ex-husband CJ Hunter was banned for two years over steroid use revealed at the Sydney Olympics.

Also among the charges, Jones plead guilty to lying about her role in a multi-million-dollar check-fraud scam involving Montgomery, which led to the convictions of more than 20 people. Jones on Friday admitted she was aware and had even endorsed a 25,000-dollar counterfeit check from her then-boyfriend.

If the IOC decides to strip Jones of the Sydney medals, the 100m title should go to the second-placed finisher, Ekaterini Thanou, who was at the centre of a massive doping scandal at her home 2004 Athens Olympics, from which she was forced to withdraw as a result.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur