Former longtime UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre is now regretting writing a letter supporting Canadian drug kingpin Jimmy Cournoyer as he awaits sentencing on serious drug trafficking charges in U.S. federal court in New York.
“Rush” tweeted a letter to his fans last night stating that the support he voiced to Cournoyer, which first ran in The Montreal Gazette, was “a mistake.”
First of all, the letter I signed was a mistake – my mistake. I will not go into details as to how and why the letter came about because it’s not going to right a wrong. I simply wanted to help repatriate Jimmy to a Canadian prison – closer to his family, if that was possible.
My friendship with Jimmy is based on our mutual passion for martial arts and going to the gym. I was not aware of Jimmy’s crimes until he was arrested by the U.S. authorities.
According to the criminal complaint issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York, Cournoyer pled guilty to trafficking over 100,000 kilograms of marijuana, 83 kilograms of cocaine and tens of thousands of MDMA pills from Canada to the U.S. between 1998 and 2012.
Additionally, according to the criminal complaint, Cournoyer also pled guilty to witness tampering and putting together a $2 million “hit fund” on anyone that would cooperate with the government.
St-Pierre has been on hiatus from mixed martial arts since December, when he vacated his welterweight strap after a hard-fought (and controversial) win over Johny Hendricks at UFC 167 one month earlier.
GSP has not ruled out a return to the Octagon, as MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani noted that the French-Canadian superstar has bulked up to 200 pounds in his time off to be closer to the same size of the UFC’s top welterweights.
Prior to taking a break from fighting, St-Pierre racked up 12 victories in a row and nine consecutive successful title defenses.
Is St-Pierre’s apology sincere, or is he just doing damage control after this story took on a life of its own with the MMA media?
John Heinis is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA editor for eDraft.com.
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