According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Barry Bonds has been indicted on four counts of perjury and one count obstruction of justice for lying to a federal grand jury in December of 2003. Among other claims, he told the jury that he never knowingly took performance-enhancing drugs. If convicted, Bonds could face up to 30 years in prison.
According to the 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. Anderson has been imprisoned for more than a year for refusing to testify before the grand jury.
If the Michael Vick-dog fighting scandal taught us anything, it’s that the feds don’t indict somebody without expecting to win. They probably have an airtight case against Barroid and no matter how invincible he thinks he is, he’s likely heading to prison.
You might have thought you got away with lying to baseball fans, Barry, but you’re not going to get away with lying to federal investigators. Too bad this didn’t happen last year, just before he had the chance to break one of the most sacred records in all of sports; a record he cheated to obtain.
