Bonds indicted for perjury, obstruction of justice
(11-15) 17:20 PST SAN FRANCISCO – Barry Bonds, the former Giants star and baseball’s career home run king, was indicted by a federal grand jury today on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with the BALCO sports steroid scandal.
Bonds was indicted for allegedly making false statements to the grand jury that investigated the BALCO steroids distribution ring, the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco said. Bonds is accused of four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice.
The grand jury indictment’s a long way away from a conviction, of course, but it’s been increasingly obvious since the contents of his testimony leaked that Bonds was – at the very least – flirting with perjury charges. I — and I’m not a lawyer/prosecutor/whatever — have always been unable to believe that Bonds, who by all accounts is an absolute control freak about his nutrition, workout regimen, and all other aspects of his career, would be so involved in taking substances from BALCO and not know what they were, or what they would do.
I thought this would come during the season, actually, but sometimes these things take longer.
We’ll see where this goes, then. By all accounts they’ve got enough evidence in the form of seized dosage schedules and related evidence to make the case stick. This is likely to be ugly, ugly, ugly — particularly with Bonds’ achievements in this last season when he played under the shadow of this looming indictment.
