If what a number of news organizations are reporting is true, the Barry Bonds saga is going to be heating up in the near future. Acccording to the San Jose Mercury News web site, “hundreds of documents” were released today that paint a circumstantial picture suggesting the former San Francisco Giants slugger used steroids during the glory days of his career. As Howard Mintz writes:
In hundreds of documents made public for the first time Wednesday, prosecutors outlined a host of circumstantial evidence linking Bonds to steroid use, ranging from the positive drug tests to the testimony of everyone from former teammates to the vice president of the infamous Balco lab that spread performance enhancing drugs throughout sports.
But the documents also underscore why federal prosecutors have labored so hard to secure the testimony of Greg Anderson, Bonds’ former personal trainer and the person alleged by the government to have supplied the former San Francisco Giants slugger with steroids through Balco. There is no firsthand evidence in the documents that Bonds knowingly lied about his alleged use of steroids when he testified to a grand jury. Without Anderson’s testimony, defense lawyers may be able to argue that the government’s perjury case consists only of hearsay and unreliable test results.
Bonds, whose trial on perjury charges begins on March 2nd, most likely will plead not guilty to the charges against him. And if the government can’t compel Greg Anderson to testify against his former client, they may have a hard time proving that Bonds committed perjury during his testimony to a grand jury investigating the Balco scandal in December 2003. Of course, the government is pretty confident that they can still prove their case against Bonds.
n hundreds of pages of previously secret material, the government revealed the core of its case against Bonds. In those documents, prosecutors say if Anderson sticks to his “illegal” refusal to testify, the rest of its evidence is sufficient to convict Bonds of perjury and should be presented to a jury. Anderson, who served a year in prison in 2007 for contempt for refusing to testify before the grand jury probing Bonds, has indicated through his lawyer that he will not testify.
In court papers also unsealed Wednesday, Bonds’ legal team insists Bonds cannot get a fair trial if much of the evidence is allowed.
“Barry told the truth to the grand jury, and nothing in the graffiti the government wants to use against him changes that,” added Allen Ruby, Bonds’ lead attorney.
The story goes on to give some highlights from the documents released today. And the Mercury News also posts some pictures of documents related to the Bonds’ alleged positive steroid tests. If you’ve got the time, take a few moments to read the Mercury News story. Whether the government can get that evidence to stick is another matter, however.
In an e-mail Wednesday, Balco founder Victor Conte, who has openly questioned the government’s case against Bonds, doubted [James] Valente could link Bonds to positive steroids tests. “I do not believe Valente can connect the dots for the government regarding any laboratory reports,” he said.
In court papers, Bonds’ lawyers note that Valente admits there is “no chain of custody” to prove the samples were from Bonds. “There is no foundation that the specimens tested came from Barry Bonds,” defense lawyers wrote, urging Illston to bar them from the trial.
Come March, we’ll see whether the government’s case stands up. Meantime, there’s another story, published on Examiner.com, that questions the prosecutor’s tactics in pursuing Anderson’s testimony.
What’s the best way to get a tough guy to cooperate? You lean on his family, right? Even the hardest case will usually break if you smack his kids around, threaten his wife or … send 20 federal agents crashing through his mother-in-law’s front door? Yup. That’s what the federal government did as part if its jihad against accused steroid-user Barry Bonds; a mob of IRS and FBI agents raided the home of Madeleine Gestas, mother to the wife of uncooperative trainer Greg Anderson.
Except that the government’s version of a severed head usually has a little more finesse, since politicians control the law books. And tax law makes an especially handy horse’s head, since it’s so easily subject to interpretation and carries harsh penalties.
It should be no surprise that the federal government uses mob-like tactics in pursuit of its goals. Fundamentally, government is just the Mafia with better PR. You tick off the wrong people, you’ll wake up next to a severed horse head.
Turns out that prosecutors are leaning on Anderson’s wife and mother-in-law in order to get Bonds’ former trainer to testify. They’ve even resorted to crashing through his mother-in-law’s door, according to J. D. Tuccille, writing for Examiner.com. Tuccille notes that the initial efforts to lean on the two women didn’t produce the results the government wanted, so prosecutors decided to:
Lean on the family a little harder, of course. So last week, agents from the IRS and the FBI crashed through Madeleine Gestas’s door.
Just so Anderson would get the message, of course.
“Monday they faxed a letter, demanding to know whether [Anderson] was going to testify,” Anderson’s attorney, Mark Geragos, says. “They’re acting like the Gestapo. Even the Mafia spares the women and children.”
Well, maybe the Mafia spares women and children. But nobody is safe when you tick off the feds.
Coming up in a few week’s time, we’ll see whether Bonds or the government will prevail. Judging by the circumstantial evidence released today, he looks guilty. But there are many questions to be raised about the lab work that “proves” Bonds’ “guilt.” Including whether or not prosecutors can prove that the test results really came from samples that Bonds gave. And there are questions to be raised about just how far the government will go when prosecuting such cases. March is going to be an interesting month, and not just because spring training will be well under way. As Mintz notes, there’s no first-hand evidence against Bonds at the moment. But as Tuccille notes, the government is very dogged in their pursuit of the evidence they will need to put Bonds away.
Who’s going to prevail? I wouldn’t hazard a guess right now. I suspect it’s going to be a battle of the titans.
Hat tip to eightzero, who left a comment on the previous post linking to the Mercury News story. Somewhere, I saw a story that talked about Roger Clemens and his travails, too. But I’ll have to go digging for that one again..
Rant, based on a fast review of the new Bonds material, it sure looks like he doped. But I see nothing to indicate that he KNEW he was doping.
Maybe he should have known. Maybe he’s guilty of not knowing and not wanting to know. Maybe he suspected. Maybe he was less than forthcoming in his grand jury testimony. I find it hard to jail a guy just for that.
I’m no expert in this area, but I don’t think the government would be putting so much pressure on Anderson to testify if they thought they had Bonds dead to rights. The story you quoted in the Examiner reflects government conduct that, whether or not justified, is not going to play well in front of a jury.
I’m no fan of Barry Bonds … but why is this particular conviction so important to the fed prosecutors? Is this really worth the effort? I love baseball as much as the next guy, but do we really want to jail people just for cheating at sports?
Larry,
I think we’re on the same wavelength. It sure looks like he doped. But the real question is whether he knew what junk was being pumped into his body. He should have known. What kind of fool would let a trainer just pump anything into his system without knowing what it was and what the potential side effects were? That’s a kind of risky behavior that I can’t even fathom.
If he didn’t know, then he’s certainly guilty of being a fool. But is that enough to toss Bonds in jail? (And if being a fool is what it takes to land in the clink, how come it’s not more crowded in there?)
I don’t quite get why Bonds is the holy grail of the Balco investigation. And, like you, I’m not comfortable with the idea that athletes should be thrown in jail for cheating in sports. That seems pretty harsh.
At least Barry Bonds’ trial will take place in a real court, following proper (I hope) legal procedures. So it shouldn’t be as much of a kangaroo court as some other cases we’ve come to know and “love.” But the whole thing does leave me scratching my head at times.
Gentlemen, I believe the Feds fervor in getting Bonds is much the same as WADA taking down Floyd. Bary Bonds is the Lance Armstrong of baseball. There are people who truly believe he cheated, and will go to GREAT lengths to take him down. I believe that same attitude was taken with Floyd….WINNER of the 2006 TDF. It was quite apparent from the statements he made that Dick Pound truly believed Floyd cheated (and then quickly offered a DEAL to Floyd if he would provide testimony against Lance). Once the mind is made up, then it’s just a matter of ‘proving’ it. Somewhere in the human psyche I think there is a part that switches into “the ends justifies the means” system when you believe you’ve ‘got your guy’. It apparently happens in our justice system all the time too. Innocent people ARE put in jail, as SOMEBODY has to pay, and everybody can sleep better at night. Whether BB is truly guilty or not I don’t know…but I will really try to be open-minded in my judgment. How could I say (to myself) that BB is a cheater based on the available data, when I truly still believe Floyd isn’t, even after his ‘conviction’ was upheld?
All I can add to this is that it will be AWESOME to see (IN PERSON!!!!) Floyd ride this years Tour of California again (which he WON in 2006!). I think it’s going to be an AWESOME RACE! The teams are bringing their ‘A’ list of riders…the only notable TDF GC contenders not riding are Contador, Valverde and Evans. It’s going to be a February mini-TDF right here in CA! And it starts NEXT WEEKEND!!
Excellent analysis over at ESPN. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=3885121.
Matt, one difference between the Bonds and Landis case is that Landis was prosecuted by WADA and other agencies responsible for the anti-doping effort in sport. It is a GIVEN that WADA and the ADAs are interested in this issue — that is their JOB. In contrast, the feds are responsible for enforcing U.S. law, not for taking down sports cheaters.
The Bonds case arises from grand jury testimony given by Bonds, where Bonds was given immunity. In other words, he could not be prosecuted based on the things he said before the grand jury, so long as he told the truth. Presumably, the purpose of this testimony was to get information to be used for the prosecution of BALCO insiders and others who might have broken federal law. So I get it: if Bonds lied about the activities of others in the case, that would have impeded the federal investigation. The feds have a legitimate interest in receiving truthful testimony that might be required as part of their law enforcement duties.
But Bonds is not being accused of lying about the activities of others. He’s being accused of lying about his own knowledge of what was going on. What is the government interest in whether Bonds knew he was doping?
Remember: if Bonds has stepped forward and said, “Yes, I was doping, yes I knew I was doping”, the government could not have prosecuted him. He was given immunity.
The feds, in particular, seem to be fond of using a perjury charge when they have problems making other charges stick. They got Scooter Libby this way, and the impeachment of Clinton was based on a charge of perjury. In the Libby case, it appears that they were unable to make a case about the issue of revealing Valerie Plame’s ID, and so went for the perjury charge. Depending on your own POV on the whole Plame affair, you might see this as the action of a vindictive prosecutor or an attempt to make sure people give truthful testimony in federal investigations. The latter can be a legitimate issue: if people give false testimony, justice can be perverted.
Similarly, how one feels about the Clinton impeachment may be based on your overall beliefs about Bill. His peccadilloes with Lewinsky were undoubtedly sordid, but whether they, in and of themselves, constitute “high crimes and misdemeanors” I don’t know. Apparently the House didn’t, and instead impeached him for allegedly lying about it. Was this just a political maneuver? I won’t attempt to guess.
As to Bonds, people are concerned about doping in sports. Since some of the drugs used as PEDs are on the list of controlled substances, the feds do have some degree of legitimate interest in that regard. Also, sports like baseball are big business, big and interstate business, which makes another in for the feds. It can be argued that by using PEDs, an athlete is committing a fraud, affecting interstate commerce.
And there is certainly likely to be a political element here too. As I said above, people are concerned about doping in sports. The feds do not want to be perceived as ignoring this problem, so they investigate.
William, to clarify: it is a crime to lie to the feds under oath. If there’s an exception for lying about matters of no consequence, I’m not aware of that exception.
Scooter Libby lied about matters of great consequence, presumably to protect higher-ups from scrutiny, and by doing so impeded an important federal investigation. That’s a serious matter, and in my view worthy of federal prosecution.
Bonds allegedly lied about his own knowledge of his own use of PEDs. If he DID lie, it’s a crime and he can be prosecuted for it, but I don’t think it’s worth the time and effort to do so. Bonds’ lie did not interfere with the government’s investigation, as the government had already decided NOT to prosecute Bonds for drug use (hence their grant of immunity to Bonds). I cannot see how Bonds’ lying (if he DID lie) hurt the government’s investigation in any way.
“Bonds allegedly lied about his own knowledge of his own use of illegal PEDs”
Thus, most of the evidence that he had been using PEDs is of dubious relevance. The tests don’t really matter — let’s take it as a given that The Cream and The Clear were PEDs, and that he admitted use of them.
The question is, “did he know they were illegal PEDs?”
Short of Anderson saying he told Bonds they were illegal PEDs and not “flax seed oil” emoluments, I don’t see how the case can be made that he knew, and was thus intentionally lying about it.
Willful ignorance is still ignorance. Maybe he “should have known” and chose not to find out. I don’t see how he can be held accountable for not knowing.
Without Anderson, and without something on the tapes that documents Bonds being informed, I don’t see where this is going.
Even the allegations of injectable use are of dubious probative value, without a showing that he /knew/ what was being injected was an illegal PED.
It feels like a “lets look like we’re getting tough” exercise.
Like many anti-doping efforts.
TBV
Larry:
Indeed your correct, however there are some who would hold that the Scoot did nothing wrong, or at least was justified. One particularly powerful (at the time) person though along those lines and gave him a get out of jail free card. Pays to know people in high places. The point I was trying to make is that, depending on how you feel about the particular case, you may think a perjury prosecution is either vindictive or politically motivated. Would the feds be going after some utility infielder from a class A team under the same circumstances? I don’t know.
The Bonds affair has me rather in 2 minds. On one hand, my OPINION is that he did dope, but on the other I am not aware of any real good clear evidence that he did. His trainer says he did, but how creditable is he? There are now some test results, but from the little I have read about them, there is no clear link to Bonds himself. Maybe more will come out as the case proceeds.
I think we all should remember that, while we all hold opinions about Bonds, Armstrong, Landis, etc., and are entitled to hold those opinions, they are just that: opinions. The only opinions that count are those of a duly appointed tribunal, whether those opinions are right or wrong. Two such tribunals found against Landis. none have found against Armstrong, and the case against Bonds is still in progress.
There’s no doubt Bonds took dope. Don’t even dwell on that. The question is whether he knew he did it, and so lied when he said he didn’t knowingly dope.
His trainer hasn’t said anything, and has spent time in jail to avoid saying anything. As I said before, the tests results don’t mean anything unless they can be connected to Bonds’ knowledge of taking PEDs.
Remember, it was not improper under MLB rules for him to take anything; nor was it clearly illegal, nor has he been charged with it. All the effort spent trying to show that he did take them is chasing a red-herring, because that is not what he is charged with.
The only question is whether he knowingly lied about it to the grand jury. I haven’t seen a smoking gun about that at all so far, even accepting the tape and the test results at face value. They don’t address what Bonds himself knew.
TBV
TBV, the gov’t is going to have to prove that Bonds doped. Otherwise, he couldn’t have been lying when he said he didn’t dope. I agree that he probably doped, though even Bonds deserves the benefit of whatever doubt there might be on this question. However, I’m not sure if the government can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Bonds doped. It appears that a lot of government evidence will be excluded, based on the kinds of procedural rules many of us wish had been available to Floyd Landis.
As for whether Bonds intentionally lied to the grand jury, it appears that the government intends instead to amass circumstantial evidence that Bonds must have known he was doping. Clearly, such evidence exists, but it looks like a tough case to me.
My point remains. Even if Bonds did dope and intentionally lied to the grand jury, why prosecute? Yes, there’s some general harm done to the legal system when people lie under oath, but we don’t have the time or the money to chase down everyone who’s lied under oath. Unless the lie caused material harm to the interests of justice and law enforcement, I think the right thing to do is to let it go.