SAN FRANCISCO - PROSECUTORS briefly moved disgraced sprinter Marion Jones from a prison in the state of Texas to the San Francisco area three months ago in case they needed her to testify against her former athletics coach on trial for lying to investigators, according to a published report.

The New York Times, citing an anonymous source, reported on its website that prosecutors would have called Jones to the witness stand if coach Trevor Graham had testified in his own defense.

Prosecutors didn't list Jones on a formal witness list turned over to Graham's attorneys before the May trial, which barred them from calling her while the government presented its initial case.

But prosecutors probably could have called her as a so-called rebuttal witness if Graham took the stand and denied providing Jones and numerous other athletes he trained with banned substances.

'We were not aware that Jones was in the Bay Area,' said Graham's attorney, William Keane.

A jury convicted Graham of lying to an investigator during the US government's probe of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) about phone calls he made to a confessed steroid dealer. The jury deadlocked on two other related charges, which prosecutors later dismissed.

Jones is scheduled to be released from prison after serving most of a six-month sentence after she pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about her doping. -- AP