Why You Shouldn't Believe Marion Jones: Vol. 46
This is the 46th submission in a long series about Marion Jones, a former elite sprinter who won (stole) honour and earned (stole) endorsements, fame and fortune by method of fraud. This story is being told in its entirety, because Marion Jones is unable to do it herself.
This section is titled, "'Bad Company', said the thief, as he went to the gallows between the hangman and the monk."
Marion Jones's attorney Joseph Burton made a condemning statement after C.J. Hunter had been discovered to have spoken with the Federal authorities, but one which relies on their own cheat, Trevor Graham, as a truth-teller to give their claim credence.
โFortunately, Hunter's efforts to exact his revenge by telling lies to the government are directly contradicted by the statements made to the government investigators of Marion Jonesโs former coach, who has supported everything Marion has said all along - that she never used performance enhancing drugs.โ[1]
Federal authorities had not stated that C.J. Hunter made any significant inaccuracies in his multiple statements to them made on different occasions. They had neither arrested him nor accused him of making statements under oath which were false or wildly inaccurate against the claims and evidences they have collected to make such an evaluation.
U.S. Federal Rules of Evidence listed in Article VI, Rule 613(b) state that โextrinsic evidence of a prior inconsistent statement by a witness is not admissible unless the witness is afforded an opportunity to explain or deny the same and the opposite party is afforded an opportunity to interrogate the witness thereon, or the interests of justice otherwise require.โ[2]
Had Burton or any other claimant stating that Hunter was inconsistent in his testimony made any legal move of protest to the courts or to the authorities, or was the extent of their protest a general statement of opinion?
Considering they knew their client was guilty, they made no such move to the courts.
Did they follow through with their statement and make an appeal to the legal system to either charge Hunter with lying to authorities or to have anyโand allโstatements he made on behalf of Marion Jones inadmissible should they have come to light in a trial setting?
They did no such thing.
Even had this earlier gone to trial, would they have found substantial evidence to the contrary of what Hunter had statedโevidence which would confirm the facts as they saw them, namely of him being a liar?
No. Marion Jones later proved that what Conteโand, now Hunterโhad stated was, indeed, true to a certain extentโan extent she wanted to stretch (or limit) you to understand.
One indisputable fact is certain, however: C.J. Hunter was sanctioned for drug-usage.
It was stated that Hunter had more than 1,000 times the legal limit of nandrolone in his urine during one of four failed drugs tests leading up to the Olympic Games in Sydneyโa failure he and Conte, a close friend at the time, blamed on having received bad nutritional supplements.
Those who held Marion Jonesโthe two-time World Champion 100m sprinterโon her pedestal leading up to the Olympic Games would have been unable to acquiesce to contending statements that bad company with C.J. Hunter, then-husband, had a negative or adulterated affect on Marion Jones. They persuaded themselves that Marion Jonesโs placid emotional state of mind at the Olympic Games was testimony of her strong resolve for solidarity between her goals and her driveโdemonstrating that whatever C.J. Hunter was doing in his private time had nothing to do with Marion Jones.
In his statement to the agents, Hunter said Jonesโ use of banned substances dated at least from the ramp-up to the Mount San Antonio College relays in Southern California in the spring of 2000 and continued after the Sydney Games later that year. [3]
Those who see the big picture hereโalert persons who are able to grasp the concept of positive and negative image and coalition bonds having equal and opposite reactions on each otherโare able to judiciously conclude that the fraternity link Marion Jones shared with C.J. Hunter had damaging effects on Marion Jones, but not without Marion Jonesโs unreserved knowledge.
Black Athlete held an interview with C.J. Hunter at his home in August, 2004. Their accounts of the Hunter-Jones relationship included Hunterโs Raleigh-based lawyers, Angela and Rusty DeMent, barely permitting Hunter to answer questions about Marion Jones, a sign, they stated, of just how complicated his role in the ongoing BALCO investigation was. [4]
The non-disclosure agreement included in the disassociation between Cottrell Hunter III and Marion Jones in addition to the tough lawyer talk from the Hunter attorneys speculatively leads a panel of non-participants to question just what was being hidden from the public, and why.
Chatham County public records reveal that Marion Jones and Hunter signed deed for Lot 10 Willowbend Plantation in Williams Township on Feb. 23, 2003 in the amount of $1.69 million. Hunter would subsequently name Marion Jones as grantee of that lot in Williams Township on Aug. 1, 2002 according to a Chatham County public records search. The original mortgage sum was paid and satisfied on Feb. 23, 2003.
Marion Jones would consequently lose the home to foreclosure.
Marion Jonesโs attorneys had been quick to point out discrepancies where they may have appeared to the naked, untrained eye to be failure points with USADAโs claims against Marion Jones. They had also been very quick to provide documents which supported their claims when other documentsโor more than โessence of statementsโโexisted according to unidentified news sources.
โWould people stand for that? Is it fair to take away someone's livelihood and reputation based on that lack of quality evidence? Over all, the documents we've been shown would not constitute proof under any standard in any court, civil or criminal, in the land.โ [5]
This response from Marion Jonesโs attorneysโwho questioned the evidence brought forth by USADAโbegs two questions: If it was not โover allโ a conclusive proof, was it selectively representative of drugs usage? If USADA had a lack of โquality evidenceโ, what substantiation had Marion Jonesโs team produced which could undeniably shatter all doubt, speculation, questioning and deliberation in the matter of USADAโs Suspicion of Marion Jones?
Marion Jonesโs attorneys left open a legal talk which enabled one to rationalise their statements as having loopholes, yet evidently, no one had taken Marion Jonesโs attorneys to the bank on those words. Such statements provided no new facts, but merely asked the viewer to concede to inferences drawn by Marion Jonesโs counsel from assumed facts. Marion Jonesโs legal team have worked to lead one to believe that the opposition are a master of fiction, and they, the speakers of truth, are the masters of fact.
In having done so, and with Marion Jones having been proven to be a liarโwith all her statements on the subject of innocence being matters of fiction, one shall not give credence to the defenses made by her attorneys at any single, solitary point in her careerโcertainly not with the โAโ-sample and โBโ-sample fiasco they faced in 2006.
Her attorneys played this game of โwhoโs lying to whom?โ again in retorting C.J. Hunterโs claims that Marion Jones took steroids.
According to her attorneys, Conte spread lies and started unfounded rumours about Marion Jones, and was he was sued. C.J. Hunter, according to the statement aboveโwith the emphasis being placed on the word potentialโdid something they didnโt consider right, but was potentially legal. The only way they could have discounted Hunter as a potential witness is if they could have provided documented evidence that Hunter โ who could have been convicted of a crime had he not been provided limited immunity โ disclosed witness testimony which involved dishonesty or false statements.
Unlike the case against Conte, Marion Jonesโs legal counsel had intended to have Hunter prosecuted for making such statements against her. Absent was the threat of a $25 million lawsuit against him; only hard time in the big house to consider what he had stated stared him in the face.
โSince C.J. Hunter has lied to government officials, he also needs to be investigated, be subjected to a polygraph investigation and prosecuted for lying to federal investigators,โ her attorney Joseph Burton said. [7]
Burton was certain that Hunter would fail an investigation, and would be subjected to criminal charges. Hunter was never brought up for charges for making false statements, nor is a polygraph test, in its entirety in the absence of further evidence, completely reliable. There are, according to researchers, no machines able to detect with a high degree of accuracy when people, selected randomly, are lying and when they are telling the truth. [8]
Marion Jones proved that with the utmost of certainty.
However, Marion Jonesโs attorneys stated that it was clear that someoneโfinger pointed at Hunterโwas lying, with the polygraph test administration the determinant factor in the C.J. Hunter argument.
There were no bold declarations of her passing every drugs test ever administered to her, nor were there, as a matter of fact, any mention of Marion Jones having passed drugs tests whatsoever when discussion was centered on C.J. Hunter.
Nor did her attorneys clue us on to the fact that, following C.J. Hunterโs steroids positive in the summer of 2000, Marion Jones and Hunter filed and completed a Modification and Extension Agreement on Feb. 22, 2001 which required six payments of $11.967,49 due on the 22nd day of each month concluding with Aug. 2001. Some of Marion Jonesโs fans simply stated that she was following through on being a good wife and continued standing by her husband. I query as to why she engulfed herself in a larger debt pool if she had no desire to continue in the relationshipโwhich, at that point was sans any BALCO entanglement.
That same summer in 2000, Marion Jones stuck by her husbandโs side in Sydney, assuring him and the world that Hunter would be cleared of all speculation of steroids use. She interviewed with Ebony Magazine for an article featuring the 10 most-powerful black women in America which was published in March 2001 stating that the bond and trust she shared with Hunter was unrivalledโa fact she realised when the entire ordeal developed before the world:
โIt made us realize that we have to rely on our families even that much more,โ she says. โWe realized that the only persons we can truly trust in this world is each other and our families. That realization made a big difference between C.J. and me.โ[9]
Burton had not been able to demonstrate that he could corroborate his opinions about Hunterโthey had never been admitted in a court of law as factโby having done personal investigation or interviews relating to the claims Hunter has made. Burtonโs assertion was that Hunter had misled investigatorsโacts, if they were true, would have been criminal. He had not demonstrated why his opinionsโwhen weighed against other opinionsโwould have been correct, or on what factual basis.
There is a compelling personal and/or prescribed reason Hunter has remained quiet on his Grand Juryโand subsequent Federal agentโtestimony, and has been adamant about wanting his lifeโnow in limboโto be left alone. His ex-wife, Marion Jones, has had attorneys whoโve stated that he was embittered, and had an axe to grind. Oddly enough, I have never heard C.J. Hunter publicly state negative comments about Marion Jones.
Moreover, I have not heard C.J. Hunter yet come out in the open and say, โSee, I told you so!โ following Marion Jonesโs confession.
One thing Hunter had said, howeverโto a fault, is that a polygraph testโas was the case with Graham and Marion Jones in their defences of themselvesโwould vindicate him against Marion Jones counter-accusations of him being a liar, and provide some credibility to where there is visiblyโat first glanceโzero to none existent.
Marion Jonesโs connection failuresโher failure to connect the dots, that isโcontinued past Trevor Graham, Victor Conte and C.J. Hunter.
Marion Jones travelled to Toronto to begin working with Charlie Francis in Jan. 2003, before she abruptly ended the association with the man known as โCharlie the Chemistโ the following month following widespread, international criticism from the international athletics federation, European meet directors, and foremost Nike, which had plans for a multi-million dollar advertising campaign centred on her lead-up to the 2004 Olympics, and had paid her a reported $3 million yearly [10] to endorse its products.
โThings have been laid on the line to Marion,โ said a senior source at Nike. โIf she doesn't get out now then it's going to be too late for her and us.โ[11]
(As it would turn out, Marion Jones would not qualify for any sprint event for the 2004 Olympic Games, qualifying only in the long jump, and Nike ended its relationship with her following her disappointing showing).
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.jpg?w=2560 "Week 2 Start 'Em, Sit 'Em")