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Jones' sentence sends a message Jan. 11: Marion Jones, the disgraced former Olympic athlete, received the maximum sentence of six months in prison for lying about steroid use. NBC's Mike Taibbi reports.

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updated 1:59 p.m. ET Jan. 11, 2008

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - Marion Jones said she was scared. She said she was sorry. With a catch in her voice, she said her young sons needed her.

“I ask you to be as merciful as a human being can be,” she implored the judge.

To no avail.

The former Olympic track gold medalist was sentenced to six months in prison Friday for lying to investigators about using performance-enhancing drugs and her role in a check-fraud scam.

And so ended a long fall from grace for the one-time fastest woman on earth.

She leaned over the courtroom railing and softly cried into her husband’s shoulder.

Jones’ speed, along with a dazzling smile, pleasant personality and unmatched style, made her an international superstar even before she won five medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. The medals and her riches are gone now, and she has been “put through humiliation with great fanfare,” said U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas, who sentenced her.

He said Jones damaged two federal investigations with lies that came years apart, so “I don’t think the criminal conduct can be written off as a momentary lapse of judgment or a one-time mistake, but instead a repetition of an attempt to break the law.”

The check-fraud scheme was a major crime and the wide use of steroids “affects the integrity of athletic competition,” he said. If Jones had told the truth from the start, he said, it would have been a great help to the ongoing BALCO investigation.

Later Friday, the judge sentenced Jones’ former coach, Olympic champion Steve Riddick, to 5 years and 3 months in prison for his role in the check-fraud scam. Riddick also was given three years’ probation and must pay back $375,000.

Riddick’s lawyer, Bryan Hoss, said Riddick would appeal.

Jones pleaded with the judge not to separate her from her sons “even for a short period of time,” saying she was still nursing the younger one. Although she is happily married now to Olympic sprinter Obadele Thompson, she said she knew from experience the problems of bringing up children in a one-parent household.

Karas acknowledged the children were victims, but said criminals “have to realize the consequences of their actions on others.”

“We wouldn’t be here today talking about the possibility of incarceration if Ms. Jones-Thompson had told the truth,” he said.

A prison sentence, he said, might make others “think twice before lying. It might make them realize that no one is above the obligation to tell the truth.”

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The judge said he stayed within the six-month maximum suggested by prosecutors because of Jones’ sons, her eventual acceptance of responsibility and the good she “can do to debunk the worldwide lie” perpetrated by performance-enhancing drugs.

He said 400 hours of community service in each of the two years following her release would “take advantage of Ms. Jones-Thompson’s eloquence, strength and her ability to work with kids.” He suggested she teach children that “it’s wrong to cheat and to lie about the cheating.”

Karas sentenced Jones to six months on the steroids case and two months on the check fraud case but said the sentences could be served at the same time. He imposed no fine, he said, because Jones can’t afford to pay one.

After long denying she ever had used performance-enhancing drugs, Jones admitted last October she lied to federal investigators in November 2003, acknowledging she took the designer steroid “the clear” from September 2000 to July 2001. “The clear” has been linked to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, the lab at the center of the steroids scandal in professional sports.

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Lm Otero / AP file

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