After four-plus years, after countless leaks, rumors, misleading statements, lies, innuendo, and posturing, after all of the horsehit and hysteria; Barry Bonds was finally indicted on perjury charges. Here’s the indictment.
Page 3 of the indictment starts off with this:
9. During the criminal investigation, evidence was obtained including positive tests for the presence of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances for Bonds and other professional athletes.
Really? Bonds failed a drug test? Why have we never heard this before? How could that fact have been kept a secret, while virtually everything else was leaked to the press? How is that believable?
Needless to say, it is a big deal:
According to today’s indictment, in response to one question, Bonds told prosecutors that he didn’t believe that his personal trainer, Greg Anderson, had ever given him banned drugs. Anderson later pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges in the BALCO case. Bonds’ statement was false, the grand jury that indicted Bonds today concluded.
Likewise, the grand jury said Bonds also lied when he testified that Anderson had never injected him with drugs, and when he said Anderson had never supplied him with human growth hormone.
Greg Anderson, in jail for 13 1/2 months, was released when the indictment was issued, and boy, is his lawyer pissed:
It’s infuriating, when you read the indictment. Is there anything in that indictment that wasn’t known a year ago? If that is the case, clearly, putting Greg in for a year was not only punitive, but was misleading the court in that (federal prosecutors) said his testimony was indispensable for the investigation.
All of sudden, it was, ‘I hope your year was therapeutic.’
There has to be some kind of redress for this. The whole thing is a crock of shit. He’s never said word one.
So Anderson never cracked, but they finally decided to go for it anyway.
My first reaction is that this is a travesty, and has been for years. For someone to be investigated for this long for something so unimportant is a disgrace. The amount of money spent, and the effort and time that has gone into this bald-faced attempt to dishonor and disgrace a fucking baseball player is just terrible. This is an abuse of power, a shameless personal attack of Barry Bonds.
My second reaction is, holy shit, I’m gonna get a lot of traffic. 
This is not a good day for baseball, it’s not a good day for anyone involved, really. I don’t see how you could be proud to taking four years to get an indictment for something so minor. In fact, I’d say they don’t really care whether they win or not anymore. This has gone on for so long, that they couldn’t afford not to indict him. At this point, who cares what happens. At the least, they’re gonna drag his ass through the mud for as long as they possibly can, and if they convict, great, he’ll appeal; if they don’t, they can appeal. Either way, his name will be in the paper for another three or four years.
I’m gonna be on the radio tomorrow, I’m trying to get a confirmation of a 10am, PST interview with Brandon Rosage of MVN Radio. I’ll post the details as soon as I finalize everything.
UPDATE: David Pinto thinks that the test they’re referring to would seem to be part of the survey tests MLB ran in 2003. Still find it hard to believe that that information –just the single most important fact involved in the entire case– could have remained a secret, while virtually everything else wasn’t.
UPDATE: Michael McCann has a quick analysis of the charges:
They are very serious. A grand jury has identified probable cause — meaning “more likely than not” — that Barry Bonds committed perjury and obstruction of justice. If Bonds committed those crimes, he knowingly denigrated our system of justice and those who uphold it. At best, his conduct would be characterized as brazen disregard for legal rules; at worst, an untoward combination of arrogance, deception, and guile in a setting where we demand the very opposite. However a conviction would be described, Bonds would face up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each of three perjury charges, and 10 years and a $250,000 fine for an obstruction of justice charge. He would be facing serious time
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Out of my ass? That’s nice. I spoek to the guys over at Sports Law Blog, oh, I don’t know, something like a year ago. But, again, RUFS, thanks for contributing something thoughtful.
Oh, that was fucking convincing. What, the prosecutors have a Tens-of-Millions-Dollars Account set aside for getting Bonds, from which they just simply draw huge sums of money, all to get Bonds? You really should quit making stuff up, or at least make a little effort to check oput the stuff that goes into your laughable slurs against Bonds’s critics and the people who are doing their jobs by bringing charges that are fully justified by the facts. Facts, John. What a concept. If Bonds weren’t a Giant, you wouldn’t be devoting your life to constructing your air-headed “arguments.”
It’s called case-load you douchebag… it’s not like they’re writing checks, but the goverment is spending money by allocating thousands and thousands of paid hours (both in-house and out-sourced) towards this case as opposed to something else.
damn, wheres johnny cochran when you need him. The man lived to get black dudes out of impossible corners. Gov’t killed cochran, indict them
Hey, Li’l Johnny, Legal Expert cum Accountant, where did you get your numbers saying that it cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars just to get Bonds for perjury? Or did you pull that completely out of your ass like you do everything else you write?
Not answering for John here, but pretty much any investigation of this length and profile will cost at least more than ten million dollars. With various investigators, lawyers, etc. the hours can build up pretty quick.
Jay, that is just utter bullshit. Do you clowns really believe one another here?
Out of my ass? That’s nice. I spoek to the guys over at Sports Law Blog, oh, I don’t know, something like a year ago. But, again, RUFS, thanks for contributing something thoughtful.
I wish the Bonds defenders could tell us what the gov’t is supposed to do. They become aware of a massive and illegal drug trafficking operation known as BALCO and start to investigate. They are going after the traffickers and bring in athletes to testify. They tell the athletes they are not being targeted and have complete immunity as long as they tell the truth. Some, like Jason Giambi, tell the truth to the grand jury. Surprise – Giambi is not gonna be indicted!
If you have read “Game of Shadows”, which John clearly hasn’t, you won’t be asking naive questions like, “Really? Bonds failed a drug test?” (The positive test is almost certainly from the raid of BALCO – Conte routinely tested his athletes to see how certain designer drugs and masking agents were working, or not. And unfortunately for Bonds, Conte kept a lot of records, including doping calendars with a certain “BLB” marked on many of them.)
Leaks? The big leak in the case came not from the gov’t but from an attorney who had access to the grand jury transcripts and gave them to the Chronicle in hopes of trying to discredit the gov’t. Anyone who says stuff like “This is a total fucking bullshit case” is too stupid to live. Really, you know what the Feds have on Bonds? You already know the witness list? You have access to their evidence? Hey, score a major scoop here and tell us what all the specifics of their case is.
An attorney quoted in today’s LA Times says his client testified and told the truth to the grand jury and he believes the prosecutors have handled themselves honorably. Which is a lot more than can be said for the hysterical Bonds apologists on this site, who apparently believe lying to a grand jury is all fun and games and nothing we should get all worked up over.
Here’s my question: if the smoking gun was from the raid on Balco (from FOUR years ago) why on Earth has it taken them this long to indict? My guess is that the prosecutors are going to have a bitch of a time proving beyond a reasonable doubt. Also, keep in mind that Conte cooperated, so if it was as simple as him confirming the failed test, once again, shouldn’t this have come down a few years ago? I’m not being a Bonds apologist, I’m merely pointing out some holes. I’m sure the trial will focus around some stuff that we have no idea about… otherwise, Bonds will walk.
Well, Bob , a four-year long investigation, one that cost the state millions of dollars and diverted scores of agents, resources, and investigative energy, so that a baseball player who lied in a case where the guys they were going after were eventually convicted and sentenced to a total of less than two years of jail time sure sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me.
So, to start with, if it was such a massive crime syndicate, why did the two main guys get such light sentences? Oh, because they cooperated? Well, if they cooperated, then WHY THE FUCK WOULDN’T THEY JUST GIVE UP BONDS RIGHT AT THE START?
And as for the “honorable” actions of the prosecutors, this was a vendetta against Bonds from the start. The entire BALCO investigation started because Novitsky, an IRS agent, thought that Bonds –who worked out at the same gym– was an asshole, and should be brought down. That was the start of the whole BALCO “scandal.”
And as for Game of Shadows, I did read it, and it was, well, a little thin on the footnotes. To put together such a detailed account of what someone supposedly did, one would normally expect a lot of corroborating documentation, which was apparently unavailable. So instead, what we got was a story, a narrative that supposedly detailed what these guys think happened, based on what this guy said, based on their interpretation of this piece of paper, this “log,” or test result or whatever. It’s obvious that whatever you or anyone thinks of GoS, there aren’t five things in it that would withstand the scrutiny of a court of law, OR THEY WOULDN’T HAVE NEEDED FOUR YEARS TO INDICT HIM.
Anyway, let’s talk about me being an apologist.
You sure would love it someone defended your right not to be unfairly targeted for a small crime by a massive, fininacially unlimited investigative task force. You ever lie on your taxes? Imagine if you were suddenly forced to testify against yourself, knowing that your IRS agent stretched the truth at times, and also knowing that if you told the truth you could get in trouble with your boss, possibly losing your job. And then your IRS guy was convicted of cheating taxes for himself and others, and you lied to protect yourself; and now, the government, even though they won their case against the guy they were after, decided to fuck you because they knew you lied.
You think you’d appreciate it if most people were willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, and understand that maybe, just maybe, your lie was a fairly innocuous and unimportant mistake? Or maybe you are just the kind of sanctimonious asshole who thinks everyone should live lives of martyrdom and sacrifice and perfect honesty, one in which you put Good Samaritans to shame with your unflinching perfection in every way.
I don’t expect you to agree with everything I say, but let’s start with this:
I don’t believe the agents that work for our government should be trusted unequivocally, and neither did Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin or any of the guys who, you know, only wrote the fucking Constitution. You wanna know what I think they should do? They should be investigating corporations that are raping the general public, like say, Exxon Mobil, who just reported the single highest gross revenue and profit year of any company in the history of the world, while raising gas prices some 35% for no fucking reason at all. Or government officials in the pockets of lobbyists. Or our lying, stealing, criminal of a fucking president. There’s only about ten thousand things to spend that kind of money on that could be considered a public good. Can you honestly say that indicting Bonds matters for any reason at all?
Spending tens of millions of taxpayers dollars to get Bonds because he lied in a case where they won anyway is A FUCKING CRIME. It’s not something to be congratulated for, and it’s certainly not something to celebrate.
Hey, why did li’l Johnny call Robert “Bob”?
well, I have to assume that Tammy Thomas is a famous athlete, or else you wouldn’t have mentioned her. And, from another post, to infer that Bonds went into this like some knucklehead without every word he uttered pre-scripted by his attorneys for the precise purposes of avoiding prosecution or conviction is ludicrous. If it were so obvious, it would not have taken them 4 years to indict.
anyway, sad to see Yahoo piling on – obviously they would, but still sad.
I am VERY surprised that MLB (and the union) has distanced itself from this – perhaps a side deal was struck to make Bonds the poster boy. I can’t imagine the scandal if the story was completely told of PEDs in baseball, going back decades – for god’s sake, Jim Bouton wrote about it openly in Ball Four, many athletes of the time openly admitted it, it’s an open secret that Joe Morgan was a heavy cocaine user in his peak years (hence his reticence on the issue). Bud Selig is walking a thin line here – it will be interesting if Bonds walks away “convicted” but with minute penalty.
This is not about going after Barry Bonds. He isn’t even the first person to be indicted for lying to a Balco grand jury. The cyclist Tammy Thomas’ case is ongoing, she was indicted for the same thing. Anyone who thinks this is specifically about Bonds or a famous athlete is wrong.
Let’s be honest here: Bonds is like the God Father in this whole thing… sure, they’re going after the lower-level mob guys, but they really want the big fish more than anything else. I think that much has already been well established.
[...] • And This Was Slow . My first reaction is that this is a travesty, and has been for years. For someone to be investigated for this long for something so unimportant is a disgrace. The amount of money spent, and the effort and time that has gone into this bald-faced attempt to dishonor and disgrace a fucking baseball player is just terrible. This is an abuse of power, a shameless personal attack of Barry Bonds. [Only Baseball Matters] [...]
[...] — The “Only Baseball Matters” blog [...]
if they don’t, they can appeal.
The Govt cannot appeal.
A trial should be welcome for everyone interested in the situation. Present the evidence and allow him to answer it.
Expect Conte and Anderson to be called as witnesses (refusal to testify not an option) to verify or dispute the logs with initials and dates. If they can be shown as Nowitszky forgeries, hang HIM.
The yindicted b/c the grand jury was expiring. This is a total fucking bullshit case and Bonds will walk with half-competent counsel. The indictment itself might not reflect the actual discovery (though that would be fucking odd), but in and of itself it is one of the least convincing narratives of he-said, she-said bullshit I have ever read.
At several points in his testimony, Bonds says “I could be wrong” or the equivalent. How they will ever prove he knowingly took Anderson’s steroids is beyond me, unless they have (illegally obtained in all likelihood) audio or video tapes.
The law allows the jury to make inferences about a defendant’s state of mind (crazy thing, the law). And when Bonds’s absurb testimony is viewed in the light of the impressive amount of circumstantial evidence suggesting that he knew he was lying, well, you get the picture. What is it about Barry Bonds that makes his defenders want to play so fuckin’ stupid?
As someone else has pointed out here, the government cannot appeal a jury verdict for acquittal. Perricone, will you and the other dimestore lawyers here cut it out and start worrying about baseball again? Leave legal issues to the adults.
I think it’s a case where they’ve gone on so long, and Bonds, possibly retiring and fading from the public eye, needs to get slammed now while he’s most prominent.
The other thing, which I’ve seen people say the opposite on other blogs but I strongly disagree, is that the Feds have a strong case. It is exceedingly difficult in the legal system to prove “intent”, and if Bonds says he didn’t know if he was given steroids, there’s no way to prove that he’s lying.
I also can’t possibly imagine that Bonds didn’t heftily consult with a team of $1000 an hour lawyers before he testified. If I were making $18 million a year, I think I’d pick up the phone. I’m sure he said exactly what he could get away with saying.
And of course, the silliness – perjury in a trial that resulted in a conviction anyway. If it were Joe Normal, would they even care? No.
Not too hard to prove if the feds unearthed a recording or letter or email or IM of Bonds’ stating he knew he was given steroids. Or if the feds have numerous witnesses who heard him discuss he was taking steroids. We’ll have to wait, won’t we? Just wish everyone else, esp. the media, would STFU about it.
[...] Carrie Katz created a sweet baseball article today.Here’s a mini excerpt.The amount of money spent, and the effort and time that has gone into this bald-faced attempt to dishonor and disgrace a baseball player is just terrible. This is an abuse of power, a shameless personal attack of Barry Bonds. … [...]
With all the leaks we have had in this case I would be very suprised if the Feds have any signigicant evidence we do not know about. Could I be wrong, sure I could. But, I doubt it.
Personally I think Barry used and knew he was using but the evidance of this does not reach the level of “beyond reasonable doubt” necessary for conviction. I also think Bill Clinton needs to go to jail for his simular lies before our judical system if Barry is to be jailed for making the same choice to try and protect himself from this “steroid” witch hunt that Clinton did from the “sex” witch hunt.
John,
I think the tests in question were the private tests that Anderson and Balco arranged. We already knew about these tests as they were first reported in the Chronicle and then re-reported in “Game of Shadows”.
I think the Feds are going to have a hard time proving these tests were actually of Barry’s urine and that this urine was not subject to contamination somewhere in the line of custody. How do they do this without Anderson?
If that’s the test in question, you’re absolutely correct: the chain of evidence is going to be under question, at least within a reasonable doubt (and that’s all that matters as far as Bonds’ attorney is concerned).
You can play make-believe lawyer all you want, Perricone (after months of playing make-believe journalist), but any jury not stoned on Barry Is Jesus Juice is not going to buy a story that doesn’t even pass the laugh test.
[...] Original post here [...]
Drinkin’ the Kool Aid to the bitter end, eh, Perricone?