Tim Montgomery gets additional 5 years in prison
Last Updated: Friday, October 10, 2008 | 1:28 PM ET
CBC Sports
Tim Montgomery has been sentenced to nearly nine years in prison in relation to two separate cases. (Louis Lanzano/Associated Press)Tim Montgomery, who held the 100-metre sprint record before it was expunged from the books, was sentenced to five years in prison on Friday in connection with heroin charges.
Montgomery, 33, was convicted in a U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Va., of conspiracy to possess, with intent to distribute, and distribution of more than 100 grams of heroin. He received the minimum sentence for the crimes.
"I was blind. I never had a job in my life," Montgomery told U.S. District Judge Jerome B. Friedman. "I did the wrong thing."
The former track star pleaded guilty in July.
The sentence will not run concurrent to the 46 months he was given in a New York federal court after pleading guilty in 2007 to conspiracy in a bank fraud and money laundering plot.
Prosecutors in that case said Montgomery had a hand in depositing bogus cheques worth $1.7 million US.
It was alleged that Montgomery had been involved in distributing heroin over the preceding 12 months in Virginia — that is, after he had pleaded guilty in the fraud case.
"He has chosen to ignore every benefit given to him," said prosecutor Eric M. Hurt.
The heroin indictment was handed down in May. Multliple drug buys were either electronically videotaped, tape-recorded or witnessed by agents, according to court records.
Montgomery will have a lengthy period of supervised release and drug testing after his release.
Montgomery won gold and silver medals with the U.S. relay team at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics, but his career and life began to unravel not long after he ran the 100 metres in 9.77 seconds in 2002.
Although he never tested positive for a banned substance, in 2004 he was implicated in the U.S. federal investigation of Bay-Area Laboratory Co-operative near San Francisco.
He testified to a grand jury that he used human growth hormone, and his record was eventually wiped from the books.
Montgomery is the father of Marion Jones's oldest child. Jones, who had won five medals at the 2000 Olympics, was found guilty of lying to authorities about her use of performance-enhancing drugs and her knowledge of the cheque scam.
She was forced to give up all of her medals and was released from prison in September after serving nearly six months.
The cheque scam case also ensnared Montgomery's former coach, 1976 relay gold medallist Steve Riddick, and Jones's longtime agent, Charles Wells.
With files from the Associated Press
