Dumbass Doping Defense To Drugs Trafficking Charge Gets Dutch Sprinter Stiff Prison Sentence

Image for article titled Dumbass Doping Defense To Drugs Trafficking Charge Gets Dutch Sprinter Stiff Prison Sentence
Photo: AP Photo/Michael Sohn (AP)

How dumbass are you if you are an Olympic athlete and your defense to narcotics trafficking charges is that you thought you were transporting performance-enhancing drugs?

A German court wasn’t buying. On Monday, it sentenced Dutch sprinter Madiea Ghafoor to eight and a half years in prison for drugs smuggling and trafficking. The 27-year-old Ghafoor was on her country’s 4x400 meters relay team at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and reached the 400 meters finals at the European championships last year.

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Ghafoor had around 110 pounds of ecstasy and more than four pounds of crystal meth, together worth more than $2 million, in the trunk of her car when she was stopped for a routine border check near Elten in June, according to the German news agency, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, via AP.

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Ghafoor’s defense was that she had decided to take performance-enhancing drugs to improve her career and believed she was transporting such substances for other athletes, not narcotics.

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Ghafoor, who had pleaded not guilty, is expected to appeal the sentence.