In a very interesting revelation, the New York Times today says that Marion Jones occupied a fine suite in the federal pen near San Francisco, just in case she was called on to testify in the spring Trevor Graham trial. Queen to King's pawn.
Marion Jones was moved quietly from a Texas penitentiary to the San Francisco Bay Area in May by federal prosecutors who feared that her former track coach, who was on trial for making false statements in connection with the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative investigation, would take the stand in his own defense, according to a person briefed on the matter.
Trevor Graham, the former track coach, never took the stand at the trial but if he had, prosecutors were prepared to call Jones in the hope that she would rebut his testimony.
As we know, the government earned a conviction in the Graham trial on one count of the three counts. However, the prosecutorial team appears to have worried about the verdict, secretly relocating Jones to the Bay Area.
It is often risky for a defendant to take the stand in a criminal trial. But if Graham had decided to testify that he never set his athletes up with drugs, Jones, based on her plea agreement with federal authorities, would have provided a contradictory story.
Jones was one of the biggest stars Graham trained. When she pleaded guilty in October to making false statements about her use of performance-enhancing drugs, she said in court that Graham had provided her with a steroid from September 2000 until July 2001.
Jones, who won a record five medals in track and field at the Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, which were held in September 2000, said she thought it was flaxseed oil.
Although Jones said in court that she had never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs, her testimony could have proved embarrassing because she would have been open to more questions about her use.
Lucky for Jones, Angel Heredia's somewhat faltering testimony was enough for a conviction; further, Graham did not take the stand in his own defense.
Heredia testified in Graham’s trial that from 1997 to 2000, he provided growth hormone, a blood-enhancing agent and insulin for Jones and advised Graham and Jones’s husband at the time, C. J. Hunter, on their use. Heredia testified that he never talked with Jones directly, but he provided prosecutors with a fax from Graham’s home with Jones’s blood tests.
Testimony by Heredia and a statement by Hunter, which was described at trial by a federal agent, placed Jones’s drug use at least one year earlier than she has acknowledged. In addition, Dennis Mitchell, a sprinter who advised Jones in 1997, testified that Graham had talked with them about performance-enhancing drugs during that year.
The government prosecutors worked on the case long and hard, preparing briefings on Jones to rebut any possible Graham testimony.
Jeff Novitzky, the federal agent leading the steroid investigations, testified under cross-examination that he prepared a 29-page special agent’s summary report on Jones last year. The details and full extent of her involvement with banned drugs have never been made public.
Daniel C. Richman, a professor of law at Columbia University and a former assistant United States attorney, said that prosecutors always wanted to be prepared for the rare circumstance in which a defendant decided to testify.
“In an effort to rebut a defendant’s testimony, the government will often consider calling someone with the kind of baggage that Marion Jones brings to the stand in a last-ditch effort to attack the credibility of the defendant,” Richman said. “The government may also have brought her to the Bay Area just to try and deter Graham from taking the stand.”
Chess game isn't it?
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