SAN FRANCISCO — The perjury case against former Giants star Barry Bonds is built on documents seized in a federal raid on BALCO and positive drug test results indicating that baseball’s all-time home run king used steroids, court records show.
Bonds, perhaps the greatest hitter of his generation, was indicted Thursday on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. He is accused of lying under oath in December 2003 when he told the grand jury that investigated the BALCO steroid ring that he had never used banned drugs.
The 43-year-old free-agent outfielder faces arraignment Dec. 7 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, months of legal proceedings and a federal prison term of perhaps 30 months if he is convicted at trial, legal experts said.
In the indictment, federal prosecutors said Bonds lied when he denied using a long list of banned drugs, including steroids, testosterone, human growth hormone and “the clear,” the undetectable designer steroid marketed by BALCO, the Burlingame, Calif.-based laboratory.
Bonds also lied when he testified that his longtime personal trainer, Greg Anderson, had never injected him with drugs, the government contended. The trainer, who was imprisoned for contempt of court after he refused to testify against Bonds, was freed Thursday night, hours after Bonds’ indictment was unsealed.
To buttress its perjury case, the government has what prosecutors have called a “mountain of evidence” seized in a raid on the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative in September 2003. The documents include doping calendars showing Bonds’ drug regimen and payment records of drug purchases.
In addition, the indictment says investigators have obtained “positive tests for the presence of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances for Bonds.” The indictment gave no details. But a source familiar with the case said BALCO founder Victor Conte had arranged repeated private steroid tests for Bonds to track the effects of his drug regimen.
In the BALCO raid, the government seized those test reports, said the source, who asked not to be quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the investigation.
Since the BALCO scandal began to unfold, Bonds has adamantly denied using steroids. He told the grand jury he used only flaxseed oil and an arthritis balm, not BALCO’s designer drugs.
In August, when he broke Hank Aaron’s record to become baseball’s all-time home run leader, Bonds declared that his record was “not tainted at all.” On Thursday, his lawyer, Michael Rains, vowed to fight the charges and predicted Bonds would be exonerated at trial.
Bonds’ indictment roiled a sport that has been struggling to put an end to what has been called its “steroid era.” Mostly in response to exposés about BALCO, baseball commissioner Bud Selig has ratcheted up the sport’s drug-testing programs and hired a former U.S. senator, George Mitchell, to investigate steroid use in the game.
On Thursday, Selig issued a statement saying he was watching the Bonds case carefully, but he gave no indication what action he might take. Mitchell’s report is supposed to be released by the end of the year.
The indictment also marked the end of a year-long government effort to force Anderson, Bonds’ trainer and boyhood friend, to testify about Bonds and drugs. Anderson pleaded guilty to a steroid conspiracy charge in the BALCO case and was jailed for three months.
Then, last year, the government subpoenaed Anderson to testify before the grand jury investigating Bonds for perjury. Anderson refused and was imprisoned for contempt of court. Thursday night, more than a year after he went to prison, a federal judge ordered him freed. His lawyer, Mark Geragos, said Anderson had not cooperated with the government.
Bonds won the National League’s MVP award an unprecedented seven times – five times as a Giant and twice as a young player with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He led the Giants to the pennant and the World Series in 2002. On Aug. 7, in his 15th year as a Giant, he broke Aaron’s mark of 755 career home runs, perhaps the most hallowed record in all sports.
Bonds finished the season with 762 home runs, his last coming against Rockies right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez on Sept. 5 at Coors Field.
Bonds’ $17 million-a-year contract expired in 2007, and the Giants refused to offer him a new one. He has said he hopes to sign with another team and play in 2008.
Bonds is the most famous baseball star to be accused of a crime since 1989, when Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose, holder of the lifetime record for most hits, was banned from the game and indicted for tax evasion in a gambling scandal. Rose served five months in federal prison.
Former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent called the prospect of Bonds’ indictment “a terrific blow to the game,” more troubling than the Rose scandal.
Rose was “one guy betting on baseball,” Vincent told The Chronicle last year, while Bonds’ indictment reflects a problem that strikes “right at the heart and the gut of baseball” – the sudden rise in the use of steroids and human growth hormone.
Vincent likened the Bonds case to the worst scandal in baseball history: the 1919 “Black Sox” affair, in which Chicago White Sox hitting star “Shoeless Joe” Jackson and seven teammates were indicted for conspiring with gamblers to fix the World Series. The players were acquitted at trial, but baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a former judge who had been hired to clean up the game, banned them all for life anyway.
Selig cannot act so boldly, experts said. If Selig were to respond to the indictment by banning Bonds from the game, baseball’s powerful players union almost certainly would object, and an arbitrator might well reinstate him, said baseball labor historian Robert Burk, a professor at Muskingum College in Ohio. In the modern era, baseball players accused of crimes have been allowed to continue playing until their cases are resolved, he said.
Bonds set off down the path that led to his indictment during the 1998 season, when St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire was winning acclaim for breaking the single-season home- run record then held by Roger Maris.
According to Bonds’ former girlfriend, Kimberly Bell, and other people who know him, Bonds became jealous of the attention paid to McGwire, whom he regarded as an inferior player and a steroid user.
In the offseason, Bonds began training with Anderson, a friend from the San Carlos Little League.
According to documents seized by investigators, Anderson began supplying the Giants star with steroids and human growth hormone.
Through the drug use and weight training, Bonds became far more muscular and transformed himself into the greatest slugger of his era.
After the 2000 season, Anderson took Bonds to BALCO and introduced him to Conte, who at the time was providing undetectable steroids to Olympic athletes so they could beat drug tests. After baseball began steroid testing in 2003, Anderson began supplying an undetectable steroid to Bonds to ensure that he would pass baseball’s new drug tests, the trainer said on a tape recording made without his knowledge.
By then, BALCO was the target of a drug probe led by a dogged investigator from the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal division, agent Jeff Novitzky, a former basketball player at San Jose State University. In September 2003, he led raids on BALCO and Anderson’s home in Burlingame, taking away significant evidence of drug use by a long list of elite athletes – including Bonds.
After the raid, more than 30 athletes with ties to BALCO were subpoenaed before a federal grand jury, where they were granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for truthful testimony about BALCO and drugs.
Timeline
A look at Barry Bonds and the steroid allegations surrounding him:
Dec. 4, 2003 – Bonds testified to a federal grand jury that he used a clear substance and a cream given to him by personal trainer Greg Anderson, but didn’t know they were steroids, according to transcripts obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Feb. 12, 2004 – Anderson, track coach Remi Kor- chemny, BALCO president Victor Conte and BALCO vice president James Valente charged in 42-count federal indictment with running a steroid-distribution ring that provided performance-enhancing drugs to dozens of athletes.
Jan. 13, 2005 – MLB players and owners reached a new drug-testing agreement calling for more banned substances and a 10-day penalty for first-time offenders.
March 17, 2005 – Testifying before the House Government Reform Committee, Mark McGwire evaded questions about steroid use as he testified alongside Jose Canseco, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro, who denies having used steroids. Lawmakers scolded commissioner Bud Selig and union leader Donald Fehr, saying baseball’s penalties were too lenient.
July 15, 2005 – Conte and Anderson pleaded guilty to steroid distribution and money laundering, and Valente pleaded guilty to one count of distributing illegal steroids.
Dec. 1, 2005 – Conte began serving a four-month prison sentence in a minimum security prison in Taft, Calif., about 120 miles from Los Angeles.
March 7, 2006 – “Game of Shadows,” a book by San Francisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, said Bonds used a vast array of performance-enhancing drugs, including steroids and human growth hormone, for at least five seasons beginning in 1998.
March 30, 2006 – Conte released from prison and insisted he never gave performance-enhancing drugs to Bonds and that “Game of Shadows” is “full of outright lies.”
July 20, 2006 – U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan announced he was postponing decision on whether to indict Bonds after the term of the grand jury investigating Bonds expires.
Feb. 20, 2007 – Bonds started spring training with a pointed challenge to prosecutors: “Let them investigate. Let them, they’ve been doing it this long,” Bonds said after his first workout of the year.
April 30, 2007 – Court records revealed former New York Mets clubhouse worker Kirk Radomski, who admitted selling performance-enhancing drugs to major-league players, testified before the same grand jury investigating Bonds.
Aug. 7, 2007 – Bonds hit 756th career home run to break baseball’s all-time record held by Hank Aaron for more than three decades.
Sept. 20, 2007 – Giants owner Peter Magowan informed Bonds that the slugger would not be signed to the team for the 2008 season.
Sept. 26, 2007 – Bonds played his last game as a San Francisco Giant. Earlier in the day, fashion designer Marc Ecko said he would brand Bonds’ record-breaking ball with an asterisk and send it to the Hall of Fame.
Nov. 1, 2007 – Bonds told MSNBC he would boycott Cooperstown if the Hall of Fame displayed his record-breaking home run ball with an asterisk. “There’s no such thing as an asterisk in baseball,” Bonds said.
Nov. 15, 2007 – Federal prosecutors indicted Bonds on perjury and obstruction of justice charges, accusing him of lying to a grand jury when he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs. Judge ordered Anderson released from prison.
By The Associated Press
