Tangled Webs (62 page)
Authors: James B. Stewart
Tags: #History, #United States, #General, #Law, #Ethics & Professional Responsibility
“I continued using this substance through to July 2001 when I stopped using Graham as my trainer. After I left Mr. Graham and stopped taking what he was giving me, I noticed a difference in how I felt physically. I realize now that while I was with Graham, I was able to train more intensively, I had quicker recovery periods, and achieved better times and results in part due to my use of this substance.
“By November 2003, I realized that Graham had given me a performance-enhancing drug. On November 4, 2003, I was interviewed in San Jose, California, in the presence of my then attorneys as part of the BALCO investigation by Internal Revenue Service agent Jeff Novitzky. During that interview, Agent Novitzky showed me a substance that he referred to as ‘the clear,’ which I recognized as the substance given to me by Mr. Trevor Graham. Agent Novitzky asked me if I had ever seen this substance before and whether or not I had ingested it. I told him that I had never seen the substance and that I had never ingested it. These were both lies, Your Honor, as I knew at the time that the substance that Agent Novitzky showed me was the same as that provided to me by Mr. Graham, which I ingested from September 2000 to July 2001.
“During that same interview, Your Honor, Agent Novitzky asked me if I had ever taken performance-enhancing drugs. I answered that I had not. This was a lie, Your Honor, as I knew at the time that I had taken the substance provided to me by Mr. Trevor Graham.”
“Did you know what you were doing was illegal?” the judge asked.
“Yes, sir. I did.”
So this was Jones’s new story, what her lawyers characterized as a soulsearching, courageous admission of guilt: She hadn’t known what she was taking; she’d been told it was flaxseed oil; she had somehow deduced on her own that it was a performance-enhancing drug only after the Olympics and after her performance declined; and, remarkably, that this substance, what Agent Novitzky had called the “clear,” was the only performance-enhancing drug she’d ever taken–and orally, at that.
Judge Karas turned to Matt Parrella, the assistant U.S. attorney from San Francisco from the BALCO case, and asked if he thought there was “any need” for further explanation.
The answer was painfully obvious. Victor Conte (on national television), Jones’s former husband C.J. Hunter (in sworn testimony), and Tim Montgomery (in a statement to prosecutors) said that they were present when Jones injected steroids; Hunter had actually administered the shot. Jones’s drug calendar seized in the BALCO raid indicated a regimen of “E,” or erythropoietin (EPO); “C” (the “clear”); “G” (human growth hormone); and “I,” insulin, some administered by injections. Blood-test results confirmed a surge in red blood cells associated with EPO use. In her earlier conversations with Perry and Levy, Jones had admitted most of this. Now, under oath, she was backpedaling from the truth.
“No, Your Honor,” Parrella replied.
Outside there was a battery of camera crews and a crowd of reporters. Flanked by her lawyers, Jones made a statement from the courthouse steps:
Good afternoon, everyone. I am Marion Jones-Thompson, and I am here today because I have something very important to tell you, my fans, my friends, and my family.Over the many years of my life, as an athlete in the sport of track and field, you have been fiercely loyal and supportive toward me. Even more loyal and supportive than words can declare has been my family, and especially my dear mother, who stands by my side today.And so it is with a great amount of shame that I stand before you and tell you that I have betrayed your trust. I want all of you to know that today I pleaded guilty to two counts of making false statements to federal agents.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.To you, my fans, including my young supporters, the United States Track and Field Association, my closest friends, my attorneys, and the most classy family a person could ever hope for–namely my mother, my husband, my children, my brother and his family, my uncle, and the rest of my extended family–I want you to know that I have been dishonest. And you have the right to be angry with me.I have let them down.I have let my country down.And I have let myself down.
Jones returned the five medals she’d won at the Sydney Olympics. Her seven relay teammates were ordered to return their medals too (a decision they successfully appealed). The International Olympic Committee formally stripped Jones of all medals and titles won since 2000. She announced her retirement from track and field during her speech on the courthouse steps, and in any event was suspended from competition for two years. Public condemnation was swift. The head of the International Association of Athletics Federations said, “Marion Jones will be remembered as one of the biggest frauds in sporting history.”
Her lawyer later characterized the reaction: “She’s been tarred and feathered. She has been pilloried, pummeled, savaged, dragged through the public square. It has been a public shaming and really a global shaming.”
Based in part on the sanctions and public reaction, Jones’s lawyers appealed for leniency when she came before Judge Karas for sentencing on January 11, 2008. Besides the usual glowing character references and the plight of her two young children (her second son had been born in July), they stressed her courage, honesty, and strength of character in coming forward with the truth. Henry DePippo, one of her lawyers, told a poignant anecdote about his wife’s goddaughter, a high school runner, who told him over the Christmas break that Marion Jones was her hero. How could that be? DePippo had asked her. “And she said, well, because she made a mistake, and she told the truth. And, Judge, I think that’s what this is really all about.”
“She’s admitted the truth,” DePippo concluded. “She’s disavowed her denials. She’s done it in a sincere and respectful manner.”
Parrella, too, stressed that “probably the most important thing for us in the Northern District of California investigation . . . was really to set the record straight. We believe we’ve done that.”
“Well, can I probe that a little bit?” the judge asked. He’d reviewed the drug calendars seized in the BALCO raid, which were attached to the government’s sentencing memo. The memo itself concluded that Jones’s “use of performance-enhancing drugs encompassed numerous drugs (THG, EPO, human growth hormone) and delivery systems (sublingual drops, subcutaneous injections) over a substantial course of time. . . . Her false statements were focused, hoping not only to deflect the attention of the investigation away from herself, but also to secure the gains achieved by her use of the performance-enhancing substances in the first place. The false statements to [Novitzky] were the culmination of a long series of public denials by the defendant, often accompanied by baseless attacks on those accusing her, regarding her use of these substances.”
As Judge Karas said to Parrella, “I mean you say it’s all clear to you now. I don’t read the response to your submission as acknowledging that these doping calendars, as you call them, have been admitted by this defendant.”
“That is correct,” Parrella acknowledged.
“But when you say it’s all come clean, I’m not sure I follow.”
Parrella didn’t really answer, and said he’d rely on the government’s sentencing memo, which laid out her extensive drug use.
Judge Karas returned to this issue as he explained the factors he considered in determining Jones’s sentence. “I hope you’re right, Mr. DePippo. I hope that your wife’s goddaughter can keep her faith in Ms. Jones-Thompson. . . . But I have to say, and I’m sorry to say, that I do have some doubts about the truthfulness of the entirety of Ms. Jones-Thompson’s statement before the court under oath.”
The judge then read extensively from the transcript of Jones’s statement, beginning with “I didn’t know if it was flaxseed oil . . .”
When he finished reading, the judge continued, “I think the statement that troubles me the most is, ‘After I left Mr. Graham and stopped taking what he was giving me, I noticed a difference in how I felt physically.’ The statement, I think, is at odds with common sense.
“Athletes at Ms. Jones-Thompson’s level understand that the difference between winning and losing, between all-time greatness and just being very good, is measured in micro units. And in fact, the difference between the fastest time of all in the hundred-meter dash and the ninth-fastest time is threetenths of a second . . . And what the Court was told under oath is that Ms. Jones-Thompson realized in hindsight, nearly two years after she stopped taking performance-enhancing drugs, that the changes in her training regimen and the effectiveness were not as high after she stopped taking what she was told was flaxseed oil. And that’s a very difficult thing to believe; that a top-notch athlete, knowing the razor-thin margins separating the best from the others, would not be keenly aware and very careful about what he or she would put in his or her body and recognize the effects immediately on their performance. . . . I am troubled, quite frankly, by the statement.”
While the judge conceded that it was not for him to say that Jones’s statement had been proved false beyond a reasonable doubt, he all but said she had committed perjury–again.
He also stressed the broad harm that her lies had inflicted. “Athletes in society have an elevated status. They entertain, they inspire, and, perhaps most importantly, they serve as role models for children around the world, kids who wait in line to get autographs of their favorite athlete. They wait in line just to see them walk by. They stay up late . . . so that they can watch them compete somewhere around the world and the country. They spend money to see them in person, buy products they promote, buy their jerseys. And from these top athletes, all of us, but particularly children, can learn the value of hard work, of dedication, teamwork, sportsmanship, and how to lose and to win within the rules and with dignity.”
Jones had doubly broken those rules: by using illegal drugs, participating in an illegal check scheme, and then lying about both. “It sends all the wrong messages to those who follow the athletes’ every move,” Judge Karas observed. “The choice to not play by the rules was compounded by the choice to break the law.”
Under the circumstances, Judge Karas said, he considered imposing a sentence greater than called for by the federal sentencing guidelines, which suggested a prison term from zero to six months. Instead, he imposed the maximum–six months–to be followed by two years of supervised release during which Jones should “get the message out to kids that it’s wrong to cheat and then lie about the cheating. And I think that will do a world of good.”
I
n San Francisco, Kevin Ryan had the satisfaction as U.S. Attorney of seeing the grand jury leak case solved–but not Jones’s guilty plea, let alone the culmination of the BALCO investigation his administration had launched. Ryan resigned in February 2007, one of seven U.S. Attorneys targeted by Alberto Gonzales, the former White House counsel who had succeeded Ashcroft as attorney general. The resulting furor over whether they were improperly ousted for partisan political reasons (and whether Gonzales was truthful about the reasons) largely excluded Ryan. There seemed little doubt that Ryan was told to resign for cause.
n San Francisco, Kevin Ryan had the satisfaction as U.S. Attorney of seeing the grand jury leak case solved–but not Jones’s guilty plea, let alone the culmination of the BALCO investigation his administration had launched. Ryan resigned in February 2007, one of seven U.S. Attorneys targeted by Alberto Gonzales, the former White House counsel who had succeeded Ashcroft as attorney general. The resulting furor over whether they were improperly ousted for partisan political reasons (and whether Gonzales was truthful about the reasons) largely excluded Ryan. There seemed little doubt that Ryan was told to resign for cause.
Over fifty experienced prosecutors had quit under Ryan’s regime. As John Hemann, a prosecutor who served on the Enron task force, wrote in an open letter:
There are problems in the office now that have not existed in kind or magnitude since I got here in 1995. It is no solution to deny these problems exist. People in the office–lawyers and staff–are unhappy and frustrated. People outside the office are critical and, increasingly, derisive.
Another prosecutor wrote to the Justice Department, describing an office “in crisis,” and faulted Ryan for “gross mismanagement,” according to excerpts of the letter subsequently published in the Bay Area
Recorder
, a legal paper. At a meeting conducted as part of a formal Justice Department audit, attorneys in the office disparaged him as isolated, inflexible, and disengaged from the agency’s work. Ryan had stalked out afterward, according to a detailed account in the
San Francisco Weekly
.
Recorder
, a legal paper. At a meeting conducted as part of a formal Justice Department audit, attorneys in the office disparaged him as isolated, inflexible, and disengaged from the agency’s work. Ryan had stalked out afterward, according to a detailed account in the
San Francisco Weekly
.
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