Jones is released from San Antonio halfway house

MARION JONESServed most of sentence

SAN ANTONIO - Disgraced sprinter Marion Jones was released yesterday from federal prison after completing most of her six-month sentence for lying about her steroid use.

Jones left a halfway house in San Antonio around 8 a.m., said LaTanya Robinson, a community corrections manager for the federal Bureau of Prisons. Jones, who has a house in Austin, will remain on probation.

Jones's attorney did not immediately respond to a call or e-mail from the Associated Press requesting comment.

The sprinter admitted last October that she used a designer steroid known as "the clear" from September 2000 to July 2001. The drug was linked to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, the lab that became the center of a steroids scandal that touched numerous professional athletes, including baseball star Barry Bonds.

Her admission of drug use in 2007 came after years of denials.

In 2004, she sued the founder of BALCO for defamation after he said she used steroids. The lawsuit was settled the following year, long before she told the truth in a federal courtroom.

Jones was sentenced in January to six months of prison time and 400 hours of community service in each of the two years following her release. She received six months on the steroids charge and two on a check fraud charge, but was permitted to serve the sentences concurrently.

Jones gave back the three gold medals and two bronze medals she won at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney before the International Olympic Committee officially wiped her name from the record books in December. Jones won gold in the 100 meters, 200 and 1,600 relay and bronze in the long jump and 400 relay.