Marion Jones who was born on October 12, 1975 in Los Angeles, California, is a former world champion track and field athlete known for her doping offenses. She won five medals at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia but has since agreed to forfeit all medals and prizes dating back to September 2000 after admitting to the fact that she had taken performance-enhancing drugs.
In October 2007, Jones had admitted that she had taken steroids before the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics and acknowledged that she had, in fact, lied when she previously denied steroid use in press statements, to various sports agencies, and—most significantly—to two grand juries. One, which was impaneled to investigate the BALCO “designer steroid” ring, and the other was impaneled to investigate a check fraud ring involving many of the same parties from the BALCO case. As a result of these admissions, Jones had accepted a two-year suspension from track and field competition, and announced her retirement from track and field on October 5, 2007.
The United States Anti-Doping Agency stated that the sanction also required disqualification of all her competitive results obtained after September 1, 2000, and forfeiting of all medals, results, points and prizes. On October 5, 2007, Jones formally accepted the charges levied against her and pled guilty to lying to federal agents in the BALCO steroid investigation in the U.S. District Court. On January 11, 2008, Jones was sentenced to serve 6 months in jail. She began serving her sentence from March 7, 2008 and was released on September 5, 2008.