New Jersey – Former United States figure skating champion and World Figure Skating Championship bronze medalist Nicole Bobek made her first appearance in a Jersey City court this morning on the charge of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.  “She played a significant role in this operation,” said Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said of the probe that took down a methamphetamine ring and resulted in more than a dozen arrests, including Bobek’s. “She was actively involved in the upper echelon of this Bobek wore the green garb of the county jail when she appeared in the small video conferencing room at the jail. Her hair was short and dark colored, a stark contrast to the long flowing blonde locks she sported during her skating years.

This story is sad, no question.  But it’s hardly surprising.  Many of our young people try to use their figure skating ability to pull themselves out of a lifestyle of drugs and desperation, but they’re not always successful.  Far too often they can’t shake their pasts and it catches up to them as it did here with Bobek.  Not to go all “Outside the Lines” here, but Nicole is just another victim of America’s culture of crime.  You might recall how at the age of 17 she was caught breaking into the house of a friend to steal money from a purse and now she’s a drug kingpin.   Bobek’s leg might have been high on her signature spiral move, but it wasn’t high enough to pull her out of a spiral of drugs and despair.  It’s a tragedy, but one that’s as much a part of skating as the Salchow or the Toe Loop.  I always suspected Nicole was one of skating’s Bad Girls.  Maybe she didn’t quite give off the badass vibe of say Tonya Harding or Christopher “Hans Brinker from Hell” Bowman, but you knew you probably had a shot for some easy sex with her.  Now it sounds like the only easy sex she’ll be giving away will be with prison bull dykes who remember the days of her long flowing blond locks.  It’s a shame.

Thanks to Mickey B. for the story.