SPRINTER Steve Mullings is expected to know the consequences of violating international anti-doping rules when the disciplinary panel, led by chairman Lennox Gayle, meets at 2:00 pm today at the Jamaica Conference Centre in Kingston.

The Jamaican athlete was found guilty last Thursday at the disciplinary hearing into the circumstances in which he tested positive for the prohibited substance Furosemide.

The former Vere Technical student was tested during the National Track and Field Senior Trials in June.

However, Mullings, who becomes 29 years old in exactly one week, was not sentenced on Thursday as the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCo) encountered a delay in retrieving documents from the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA).

The documents contain information applicable to Mullings’s two-year anti-doping ban in 2004 and could be crucial in determining the magnitude of the pending sanction.

Mullings’s lead attorney Alando Terrelonge agreed with the panel’s decision to defer the hearing until today.

“The documents we are awaiting from the JAAA are very important. It’s based on the contents of those documents that we (the lawyers) can make submissions. One has to approach the matter fairly and… (follow) due process (and) a matter such as this one… it’s best to await the documents,” he told journalists on Thursday.

At a two-day hearing over a week ago, JADCo’s lawyer Lackston Robinson presented the commission’s doping control officer Dr Paul Wright, chaperone Dorel Savage and a JADCo administrator Cara Ann Bennett to give testimony.

Terrelonge and his legal partner Patrick Bailey did not present a witness after they were denied by the panel in submitting Mullings’s evidence by way of affidavit (a sworn written statement) or video conference via the Internet.

The Jamaica Anti-Doping panel argued that any application would have had to be made in advance and pointed out that JADCo had ensured that their witnesses were physically present at the hearing to be cross-examined.

That explanation did not prevent Terrelonge from admonishing the panel for turning its back on Article 8.4.8 of JADCo’s guidelines, which allows for discretion in allowing the admissibility of evidence by way of affidavit, telephone, e-mail, or other means.

He contended that the affidavit should have been permitted so that the committee could attach a degree of significance to it, as opposed to a witness who is present for cross-examination.

Mullings, who is also represented by United States-based attorneys Allison Strange and Ryan Cipparone of the law firm Bret Jones PA, has been absent from all sittings of the case.

The athlete has denied any wrongdoing, but the International Association of Athletics Federation and the World Anti-Doping Agency have a strict liability policy, which forces competitors to be responsible for anything that goes into their system.

Furosemide is a potent diuretic that increases the release of fluids and other substances from the body and can be used to mask the presence of other drugs.

It is probable that the sprinter may challenge the guilty verdict at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Said Terrelonge: “I don’t see any reason why he wouldn’t (appeal). Certainly that’s a matter that both the legal teams here in Jamaica and in Florida will meet with Mr Mullings and discuss.”