Montgomery Says NO to Fraud Accusations

Former Olympic champion and current record holder on the 100m track, Tim Montgomery pleaded "not guilty" before a federal court in Manhattan, NY. He was arrested last week, based on accusations of banking fraud and money laundering. The prosecution said that Montgomery allegedly claimed 20.000 dollars for the operations in which he was implicated, in total value of 775.000 dollars.

Ruled out of all athletic competitions on a two-year ban following the doping scandal last year, the American was always in the public eye. Right after breaking the world record in 2002, Montgomery refused to compete in major European competitions because he "thought he wasn't paid good enough for his presence in the meetings". This caused a lot of disappointment and frustration to the IAAF officials, who had no control over the image that Montgomery was bringing to the sport of athletics.

Shortly after that, Tim separated from his girlfriend - American athletics champion Marion Jones - and was found guilty in doping charges.

The IAAF issued a statement in which Montgomery was to return all the prize money for the competitions that he won while being doped, but he refused continuously. This course of action might bring him a lot of distress, since IAAF threatened to rule him out of athletics for good.

As the current judiciary problems are concerned, Montgomery is being accused, along with his coach Steven Riddick and 11 other individuals, of having committed fraud in value of over 5 million dollars, depositing used, stolen or counterfeit checks into banks. One of the conspirators, Ephraim Richardson, already pleaded "guilty" to fraud accusations in another federal court, after spending his last 3 months in jail.