Disgraced American track star Marion Jones was sentenced to six months in prison on Friday.

The sentence, handed down by United States District Judge Kenneth Karas, stemmed from Jones’ admission to lying about steroid use and check fraud.

Jones, 31, denied using performance-enhancing drugs during a 2003 grand jury investigation into BALCO, a San Francisco area lab linked to the steroids scandal in sports.

But the five-time Olympic medal winner retired in October after pleading guilty to two charges of lying to federal investigators.

Judge Karas said he sentenced Jones to the maximum sentence in order to “send a message” to other athletes.

I think we have too many judges in this country that believe their job is to “send messages” rather than just following the law. Jones has been disgraced, stripped of her medals, and her name has been wiped from the history books.

A prison sentence on top of all that is unnecessary and excessive.

-Chris Jones

For more than a decade, baseball has been afflicted with “widespread illegal use of steroids and other anabolic substances” by players on every team in the big leagues, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell’s declared today.

The report contained “many” names of baseball players who sued banned drugs, Mitchell said.

Among the players named: New York Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens, a seven-time winner of the Cy Young award. The report describes Clemens’ use of the injectable steroid Winstrol in 1998.

Also, some of the former A’s and Giants players mentioned in the report: Miguel Tejada, F.P. Santangelo, Jason Christensen, Matt Herges, Mike Stanton, Glenallen Hill, Mark Carreon, David Justice, Jack Cust and Adam Piatt, whose cooperation with Mitchell was one key to his report.

Other A’s and Giants mentioned, names that had come out before in connection with BALCO, were Bonds, Benito Santiago, Bobby Estalella, Armando Rios, Jason Giambi and Jeremy Giambi. The report also mentions players with Bay Area connections who the media had reported were customers of an on-line pharmacy, including Jose Guillen, David Bell and Matt Williams.

Click HERE to read the actual report

-Samantha Giles