Spanish doctor in Operation Puerto trial sentenced to 1 year, barred from sports medicine

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FILE - In this Jan. 28, 2013 file photo, doctor Eufemiano Fuentes arrives at a court house in Madrid, Spain. Fuentes, the Spanish doctor at the heart of one of cycling\'s biggest doping scandals was found guilty Tuesday, April 30, 2013 of endangering public health and given a one-year suspended jail sentence in the Operation Puerto case. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki, File)

MADRID – The Spanish doctor at the heart of the Operation Puerto doping case has been found guilty of endangering public health and given a one-year suspended jail sentence.

Eufemiano Fuentes has also been barred from medical practice in sports for four years.

Judge Julia Santamaria read out the verdicts Tuesday, seven years after police raided Fuentes’ Madrid clinics and seized more than 100 blood bags in one of cycling’s biggest doping scandals.

The court also sentenced former cycling team official Ignacio Labarta to four months in jail. It acquitted the other three people on trial: Yolanda Fuentes, Manuel Saiz and Vicente Belda.

Defendants who receive sentences of less than two years in Spain generally do not go to jail unless they have previous convictions.

Fuentes has 10 days to appeal.

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