Olympian Jenkins Gets 7-Year Term for Steroid Conspiracy

David A. Jenkins, Olympic medalist and one-time golden boy of the British track-and-field establishment, was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment Monday for his role in a conspiracy to produce steroids in Tijuana, smuggle the drugs across the border and distribute them throughout the United States with fake labels.

Jenkins, who had been free on bail, asked for a monthlong reprieve to attend to business matters at his vitamin-packaging concern in Oceanside. But U. S. District Judge Lawrence J. Irving, appalled at the scope of Jenkins’ transgression, ordered him jailed immediately.

Jenkins was also fined $75,000--his current net worth.

“I’d like to apologize to the court and the government,” the tall and erect, but shaken, Jenkins told the judge in a brief statement before the sentence was imposed. “The enterprise ran out of my control and was misguided and foolish,” said the former track star, a resident of Del Mar, who was dressed in a blue blazer and gray slacks, white shirt and dark tie.

Prison Sentence Applauded

Federal authorities applauded the prison sentence, which matched their request and was characterized as perhaps the stiffest imposed to date in the growing number of cases involving illicit steroids--synthetic hormones that promote muscle strength and mass, but whose side effects after prolonged use can range from stunted growth in youths to liver cancer. The drugs, legally available in the United States only by prescription, are widely abused by body-builders, weightlifters and professional, amateur and weekend athletes.

The Jenkins’ ring was described by officials as one of the nation’s foremost black-market producers and distributors and a progenitor of many copycat operations.

“I think what the Jenkins sentencing will do is continue to educate the public about the dangers of steroid use,” said Phillip L. B. Halpern, the assistant U. S. attorney who prosecuted the case and has emerged as one of the nation’s leading authorities on the $100-million-a-year steroid black market.

That theme was also sounded decisively by the judge. After imposing sentence, Irving told the court: “Hopefully the message will get out that illegal steroid trafficking is not something that will be tolerated in the United States.”

Jenkins, who entered a guilty plea to four counts of conspiracy and steroid trafficking in November, 1987, faced a maximum 16-year prison sentence and a fine of up to $1 million. The seven-year jail term matched the amount sought by federal prosecutors, but, according to Robert L. Grimes, the San Diego attorney who represented the defendant, exceeded the five-year sentence recommended by a federal probation report.

‘One of the Worst Tragedies’

The high-strung Jenkins, who fidgeted with his hands throughout the half-hour proceeding, listened solemnly as Judge Irving wondered aloud how he could have squandered so much--a good family background, high intelligence, a superior education and extraordinary athletic abilities that led him to be rated at one point as the world’s top 400-meter sprinter.

Jenkins was a member of Britain’s Silver Medal-winning, 1,600-meter relay team at the 1972 Munich Olympics, and he participated in the 1976 Games. He was also a longtime steroid user, although he has said that he would never use the substance again.

“This is one of the worst tragedies that we’ve seen in 6 1/2 years on the federal bench,” Irving declared, reading off a list of Jenkins’ degrees and accomplishments--a pedigree that, the judge noted, contrasts sharply with those of the vast majority of federal court defendants. “You have it all,” said Irving.

“And then enters greed,” Irving continued, “and the whole thing seems to go down the toilet bowl.”

In his zeal to make a “quick buck,” the judge said, Jenkins ignored the dangers faced by the many athletes who used the drugs produced by the ring.

After the sentence was imposed, Jenkins, who is in divorce proceedings with his American wife, Carol L. Gilbert, turned his head and nodded to two friends gathered in the crowded courtroom along with curious onlookers and more than a dozen journalists from both the United States and Great Britain. A U. S. marshal then led him away.

Genesis of Drug Ring

His sentencing comes almost three years after a regulatory action in the United States that, prosecutors say, was the genesis of the drug ring. In December, 1985, the U. S. Food and Drug Administration withdrew the popular steroid methandrostenolone--known by its trade name Dianabol, or “D-Ball,” in gym parlance--from legal sale in the United States.

Jenkins told The Times in an interview six weeks ago that he and a co-conspirator, Daniel Duchaine, author of an underground steroid handbook, came up with the idea of finding a Mexican source to manufacture Dianabol.

The source, prosecutors allege, turned out to be a Tijuana laboratory, Laboratorios Milanos de Mexico, owned by Juan Javier Macklis, who allegedly arranged for huge quantities of the drugs to be smuggled into the United States. The defendants eventually bottled copies of Dianabol and a wide range of other steroids and pasted phony labels on the bottles, making the substances appear to be the product of legitimate U. S. and European manufacturers, including Ceiba Geigy, Syntex and Schering, prosecutors allege.

The operation began in earnest in February, 1986, and soon was netting six-figure profits for its participants, including Jenkins--who, by early 1987, was increasingly apprehensive about violence, police detection and his feeling that the operation had gotten out of control, according to his statements. One distributor in the network allegedly hired a hit man to brutalize a client who owed back payments. Jenkins was finally arrested in April, 1987, by which time he said he had severed ties with the ring.

Jenkins was one of 36 defendants named in a blockbuster, 110-count indictment handed up by a federal grand jury in San Diego in May, 1987. About two dozen defendants have entered guilty pleas, including Jenkins, Duchaine and Patrick Jacobs, a one-time associate strength coach at the University of Miami, but Jenkins’ sentence is the most severe to date. Three other cases are still pending.

Lab Continues to Produce

A number of Mexican defendants--Macklis and several other employees of his Tijuana laboratory--are fugitives. U. S. authorities charge that the laboratory continues to produce counterfeit steroids for the American market.

Once Jenkins’ prison term is completed, the judge ruled, Jenkins will spend five more years on probation. The $75,000 fine, though equaling Jenkins’ reported net worth, was well below the $250,000 penalty sought by prosecutors. Prosecutors and defense lawyers could not estimate when Jenkins may qualify for a probationary release.

The one-time sprinter’s legal problems may extend beyond his time behind bars. Jenkins, a British citizen but a legal permanent resident in the United States, could face deportation as a convicted felon.

In the earlier interview, Jenkins compared the steroid-smuggling ring to an express train that had gotten out of control. “I wish I had never heard the word steroid ,” Jenkins said.