Alexandria, Va. ? Julio Meade, a former Kansas University track co-captain and All-American, apparently died by his own hand on Friday.
While his family waited inside a courthouse for his 9 a.m. sentencing, the 53-year-old Meade apparently decided to take his own life rather than face nearly six to nine years in prison.
Police found his body and a gun near his white Jaguar in a parking lot behind the courthouse.
Meade, a quarter-miler who also qualified for the Olympics representing the Dominican Republic, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court last November to money laundering charges, acknowledging he had defrauded about 90 investors of between $1 and $2 million.
Officials said many of Meade’s victims lost their life savings and retirement funds in the scheme, which involved others and is still under investigation.
Meade was a co-captain of the 1970 KU track team. He earned All-America honors by running a leg on the KU mile relay team that finished second at the 1969 NCAA Outdoor.
After graduation from KU, Meade operated an insurance business in Lawrence until the early ’90s when he moved his family to Virginia. Two of his sons, Kendall and Brad, were track standouts at Lawrence High.
