Barry Bonds Black Home Run King Indicted. He has more to worry about now than an asterisk beside his name in the record books. Just three months ago, the Black Super Star from San Francisco Giants angrily defended himself against steroid allegations on the night he surpassed Hank Aaron to become baseball's home run king.
"This record is not tainted at all," Bonds declared. "At all. Period."
Barry Bonds has never been identified by Major League Baseball as testing positive for steroids. His personal trainer Greg Anderson has spent most of the 2007 in jail for refusing to testify against his longtime friend. His attorney, Mark Geragos, said the trainer didn't cooperate with the grand jury at all.
This indictment came out of left field," Geragos said. "Frankly, I'm aghast. It looks like the government misled me and Greg as well, saying this case couldn't go forward without him."
Bonds is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Dec. 7.
Government lawyers didn't notify Bonds of the impending indictment, a courtesy typically extended to white collar defendants so they can prepare for the public announcement.
"I'm surprised," said one of his lawyers, John Burris, who was notified of the indictment by The Associated Press. "But there's been an effort to get Barry for a long time. I'm curious what evidence they have now they didn't have before."
Defense attorney Mike Rains said he spoke briefly with Bonds but did not describe his reaction. At an evening news conference, he read a statement accusing federal prosecutors of "unethical misconduct" and declined to take questions.
"Every American should worry about a Justice Department that doesn't know if waterboarding is torture and can't tell the difference between prosecution on the one hand and persecution on the other," Rains said.
The indictment charges Bonds with lying when he said he didn't knowingly take steroids given to him by Anderson. Bonds is also charged with lying that Anderson never injected him with steroids.
"Greg wouldn't do that," Bonds testified in December 2003 when asked if Anderson ever gave him any drugs that needed to be injected. "He knows I'm against that stuff."
Prosecutors promised Bonds they wouldn't charge him with any drug-related counts if he testified truthfully. But according to the indictment, Bonds repeatedly denied taking any steroids or performance-enhancing drugs despite evidence to the contrary.
On Thursday,15 November 2007, his very freedom was put in jeopardy when a federal grand jury indicted him on five felony counts of perjury and obstruction of justice, charges that could result in a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison if he's convicted.
I am appalled at the federal indictment of Barry Bonds on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. Of course, lying to federal authorities is wrong and poisonous to the criminal justice system, if Barry lied.
I admire tenacious no-holds-barred prosecutors -- when they go after violent thugs, mobsters and would-be terrorists. The U.S. Department of Justice, however, has gone overboard in wielding its awesome might for years -- acting on a tip received in August 2002 -- to prolong a case it could have wrapped up long ago. The feds have crossed the line from closing a righteous case to prosecutorial overkill.
The charges against Bonds concern grand-jury testimony four years ago, on Dec. 4, 2003. Under grant of immunity (unless he lied), Bonds asserted that he never knowingly used banned steroids. He said he thought his personal trainer was treating him with flaxseed oil and arthritis balm.
And I wonder why the feds have put so much energy into this case, when there are so many truly dangerous criminals out there.
Why did the U.S. attorney take another four years to indict? If their case is so strong, what were they waiting for?
If they consider perjury to be a threat to the system, why wait years to go after a man whom so many observers believe lied to a grand jury? Doesn't that undermine the system's credibility, too?
Joe Russoniello was nominated to become Northern California's U.S. attorney on Thursday. Attorney General Michael Mukasey assumed his post this month. I agree with Debra J Saunders. They've both inherited this headache.
The indictment culminated a four-year investigation into steroid use by elite athletes.
Bonds and his lawyers long have accused the government of targeting a high-profile, unpopular player merely for political gain while pondering if the investigation was racially motivated.
Charges of leaks to the media and unethical legal behavior flew from both camps as the investigation dragged on and questions mounted about the government's intentions.
The 10-page indictment mainly consists of excerpts from Bonds' December 2003 testimony before a grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO. It cites 19 occasions in which Bonds allegedly lied under oath.
Bonds, who surpassed Aaron's career home run mark of 755 on Aug. 7, finished the season with 762. A seven-time NL MVP, he also holds the season record with 73 home runs in 2001.
He is a free agent after being told late in the season that the San Francisco Giants didn't want him back next year.
Asked directly if Anderson supplied him with steroids, Bonds answered: "Not that I know of." Bonds even denied taking steroids when he was shown documents revealing a positive steroids test for a player named Barry B.
"I've never seen these documents," Bonds said. "I've never seen these papers."
The indictment does not explain where prosecutors obtained those results, but may have been seized when federal agents raided BALCO in September 2003.
At the end of the 2003 season, Bonds said, Anderson rubbed some cream on his arm that the trainer said would help him recover. Anderson also gave him something he called "flax seed oil," Bonds said.
Bonds then testified that prior to the 2003 season, he never took anything supplied by Anderson — which the indictment alleges was a lie because the doping calendars seized from Anderson's house were dated 2001.
Bonds has long been shadowed by allegations that he used performance-enhancing drugs. The son of former big league star Bobby Bonds, Barry broke into the majors with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1986 as a lithe, base-stealing outfielder.
By the late 1990s, he'd bulked up to more than 240 pounds — his head, in particular, becoming noticeably bigger. His physical growth was accompanied by a remarkable power surge.
Bonds is by far the highest-profile figure caught up in the steroids probe, which also ensnared track star Marion Jones. She pleaded guilty in October to lying to federal investigators about using steroids and faces up to six months in prison.
Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, who is investigating drug use in baseball, declined to comment, but the Giants, the players' union, even the White House called it a sad day for baseball.
"These are serious charges," the Giants said. "Now that the judicial process has begun, we look forward to this matter being resolved in a court of law."
In Washington, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said: "The president is very disappointed to hear this. As this case is now in the criminal justice system, we will refrain from any further specific comments about it. But clearly this is a sad day for baseball."
Commissioner Bud Selig withheld judgment, saying, "I take this indictment very seriously and will follow its progress closely."
9 comments:
I am appalled at the federal indictment of Barry Bonds on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. Of course, lying to federal authorities is wrong and poisonous to the criminal justice system, if Barry lied.
I admire tenacious no-holds-barred prosecutors -- when they go after violent thugs, mobsters and would-be terrorists. The U.S. Department of Justice, however, has gone overboard in wielding its awesome might for years -- acting on a tip received in August 2002 -- to prolong a case it could have wrapped up long ago. The feds have crossed the line from closing a righteous case to prosecutorial overkill.
Why have the feds put so much energy into this case, when there are so many truly dangerous criminals out there.
Why did the U.S. attorney take four years to indict? If their case is so strong, what were they waiting for?
If they consider perjury to be a threat to the system, why wait? That undermine the system's credibility.
Joe Russoniello was nominated to become Northern California's U.S. attorney on 15 November. Attorney General Michael Mukasey assumed his post this month. I agree with Debra J Saunders. They've both inherited a big headache.
Michael Vick, a Black Football quarterback, was indicted for his alleged role in a dog fighting enterprise. Marion Jones, a Black Olympic Track star, was indicted for doping. Barry Bonds, a Black Baseball homerun king, was indicted for allegedly using steriods. A very distinct pattern is emerging. They are all Black super-star athletes. Two white Tour de France winners, including Lance Armstrong, have been accused of using performance enhancing drugs. Not one of them has been indicted. Only the Black athletes are being indicted. What's up with that??
Perhaps we should, despite all the evidence, accept the argument that the anger and hatred directed towards Bonds has nothing to do with race. And is entirely justified. Perhaps we should accept that - for reasons that have nothing to do with race - Bonds somehow embodies and personifies and is perhaps even the cause of everything that is wrong with modern baseball.
But there's still something bizarrely superstitious about the idea that the ritualized humiliation and punishment of an individual can save a sport's soul - especially a sport with as long and as ignoble a history of substance abuse as baseball. (A total of 63 MLB players have admitted to using steroids or have tested positive for steroids. Bonds isn't one of them.)
On 12 Dec 2007 the IOC formally stripped Marion Jones of her five Olympic medals, wiping her name from the record books following her admission that she was a drug cheat.
The International Olympic Committee also banned the disgraced American athlete from attending next year's Beijing Olympics in any capacity and said it could bar her from future games.
Jones had already handed back the three gold medals and two bronze she won at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Last month, the International Association of Athletics Federations erased all of Jones' results dating to September 2000, but it was up to the IOC to formally disqualify her and take away her Olympic medals.
"She is disqualified and scrapped from the results," IOC president Jacques Rogge said at the close of a three-day executive board meeting.
"It was an easy decision," added IOC vice president Thomas Bach, a German lawyer who headed a three-member disciplinary panel in the case. "The facts were clear."
Marion Jones admitted in federal court in October that she started using steroids before the Sydney Games. She said she'd used the designer steroid "the clear" from September 2000 to July 2001.
In addition to stripping her Sydney medals, the IOC disqualified Jones from her fifth-place finish in the long jump at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
The executive board also declared Jones ineligible for the Beijing Games "not only as an athlete but also in any other capacity."
Jones has retired as an athlete and is banned by U.S. officials from competition for two years. But the IOC wants to keep her from going to the Olympics as a coach or in any other role, and said she could face a lifetime Olympic ban pending the outcome of the BALCO investigation.
"The issue has been damaging for Miss Jones, that goes without saying," Rogge said. "I still think that this is a good thing for the fight against doping. The more athletes we can catch, the more credible we are, the more deterrent effect we will have and the more we are going to protect clean athletes."
Jones' doping admission came as part of her guilty plea to lying to federal investigators in the BALCO case about using steroids. She will be sentenced on Jan. 11 and is expected to face a term of between three and six months.
Jones becomes the fourth American athlete in Olympic history to have a medal taken away by the IOC, and the third for a doping offense.
Olympic gold medal champion Marion Jones has been sentenced to 6 months in prison for lying to federal prosecutors investigating the use of performance enhancing drugs in major sports.
She begged the judge not to separate her from her two young children "even for a short period of time".
Jones pleaded to U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas, "I ask you to be as merciful as a human being cab be". The Judge was not persuaded or sympathetic. He sentenced her to the maximum allowed under the plea-bargain deal. He said he wanted to send a strong message to all athletes who have abused drugs.
The 31 year old Gold Medal Olympic champion was also given 2 years probation and supervised release. She will be required to serve 800 hours community service. She won 3 Gold Medals and 2 Bronze Medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. She was required to return them.
Marion Jones will begin serving her prison sentence on 11 March 2008.
Boston (eCanadaNow) - Barry Bonds has asked a federal judge to dismiss the perjury charges against him.
Bonds asked the federal judge on Wednesday 23 January to drop the perjury charge as he argued that the indictment basically had no merit.
Bonds was charged back in November for lying to a grand jury about his use of performance-enhancing drugs. He since moved on to break the all time home run record in Major League Baseball.
Lawyers for Bonds stated that "the questions posed to him by two different prosecutors were frequently imprecise, redundant, overlapping and frequenly compound."
Lawyers for Bonds have asked U.S. District Judge Susan Illston to throw the case out, or to fix the indictment.
The indictment stated that there were 19 times when Bonds was caught lying.
Bonds lawyers stated that "some portions of the indictment are so vague that it is simply impossible to be certain what untruths Mr. Bonds is alleged to have uttered."
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