SAN FRANCISCO, California (AFP) - Embattled track coach Trevor Graham, who helped Marion Jones become the darling of the Sydney Olympics, was found guilty Thursday of lying to federal agents probing doping in sports.
Graham was found guilty on one count while jurors could not reach a verdict on the other two counts.
The Jamaican-born former athlete, who coached three disgraced former sprinters, jailbird Jones, her former companion Tim Montgomery and Justin Gatlin, faces a maximum sentence for the conviction on one count of five years in prison and a 250,000-dollar fine.
Judge Susan Illston set Graham's sentencing hearing for September 5. The court declared a mistrial on the other two charges but jury foreman Frank Stapleton hopes there is no second trial.
"I hope this verdict satisfies the Justice Department's lust for blood in this matter and that there will be no retrial," Stapleton said.
Prosecutors said the 44-year-old Graham lied to an Internal Revenue Service agent in June of 2004 when he denied that he set up his athletes to receive banned performance-enhancing drugs through Angel Guillermo Heredia.
"The government was bound and determined to make an example of the defendant," said the 59-year-old Stapleton.
"To achieve their (government) goal they felt it was necessary to do a deal with a true devil (Heredia), an untruthful drug dealer and an illegal immigrant who is walking the streets of America, free and presumably still plying his trade with impunity."
He is the highest-profile coach to be found guilty in the ongoing investigation of using performance-enhancing drugs in sports.
After deliberating for two days, the jury of four men and eight women could not agree on government charges that Graham, 44, lied about when he last had contact with Angel 'Memo' Heredia, a former shot-putter from Laredo, Texas who prosecutors said supplied banned performance-enhancing drugs to Graham's athletes.
They also concluded there was insufficient evidence that Heredia lied when he said he had never met the drug supplier in person, despite photos of the two presented in court.
Graham refused to comment, but his lawyer William Keane said he was relieved by Thursday's outcome.
"The jury obviously had problems with the government's case, and the allegation that Graham instigated and facilitated the use, by a few of his athletes, of performance enhancing drugs supplied by Heredia," Keane said.
Several jurors said the impasse on the two counts was reached in part because they weren't convinced of witnesses' credibility.
They believed Graham's claim that Heredia and others had an agenda to bring down Graham, who trained many Olympic athletes although he was officially banned from Olympic training sites in 2006.
"Every single one of the witnesses had an axe to grind," said Frank Stapleton, 59, the jury foreman. "The government was bound and determined to make an example of the defendant."
It was Graham who touched off the BALCO steroid distribution scandal by providing a syringe of a previously undetectable steroid to the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).
Heredia was the star government witness against Graham in the trial before Illston.
Graham's lawyer Keane said if his client is to be retried it likely would take place near the end of 2008. In the meantime, Keane will file motions for acquittal over the next few months.
Graham is the second person from the BALCO doping scandal to be convicted. Former American cyclist Tammy Thomas was found guilty last month of lying to a federal grand jury when she denied taking performance-enhancing drugs.
Eight others caught up in the BALCO probe have pleaded guilty to various charges, including Jones, who is now serving a six-month sentence for lying about her use of performance-enhancing drugs.
US baseball home run king Barry Bonds also faces perjury charges stemming from his denials of doping to a grand jury looking into BALCO.
