Barry Bonds indicted on perjury, obstruction charges
Associated Press
Updated: November 15, 2007, 5:27 PM ET
SAN FRANCISCO -- Baseball superstar Barry Bonds was charged Thursday
with perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying when he
said he did not use performance-enhancing drugs.
The indictment, unsealed Thursday by federal prosecutors in San
Francisco, is the culmination of a four-year federal probe into
whether he lied under oath to a grand jury investigating steroid use
by elite athletes.
The indictment comes three months after the 43-year-old Bonds, one of
the biggest names in professional sports, passed Hank Aaron to become
baseball's career home run leader, his sport's most hallowed record.
Bonds, who parted ways with the San Francisco Giants at the end of
last season and has yet to sign with another team, also holds the
game's single-season home run record of 73.
While Bonds was chasing Aaron amid the adulation of San Franciscans
and the scorn of baseball fans almost everywhere else, due to his
notoriously prickly personality and nagging steroid allegations, a
grand jury quietly worked behind closed doors to put the finishing
touches on the long-rumored indictment.
"I'm surprised," said John Burris, one of Bonds' attorneys, "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."
The indictment charges Bonds with lying when he said that he didn't
knowingly take steroids given to him by his personal trainer Greg
Anderson. He also denied taking steroids at anytime in 2001 when he
was pursuing the single season home-run record.
"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 athletes," the
indictment reads.
He 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."
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