The federal jury deciding the perjury case against home run king
Barry Bonds has all the evidence they are going to get from
prosecutors. With one of their charges dangling by a thread and
thwarted in their effort to introduce a secret tape recording that
just surfaced last weekend, prosecutors on Tuesday rested their
case against Bonds in the third week of trial. Bonds’ lawyers now
have an opportunity to put on their witnesses, and teased at the
notion of putting the former Giants slugger on the stand. But
Bonds’ lead attorney Allen Ruby indicated the case would be ready
for closing arguments by Thursday morning.
SAN FRANCISCO
The federal jury deciding the perjury case against home run king Barry Bonds has all the evidence they are going to get from prosecutors.
With one of their charges dangling by a thread and thwarted in their effort to introduce a secret tape recording that just surfaced last weekend, prosecutors on Tuesday rested their case against Bonds in the third week of trial. Bonds’ lawyers now have an opportunity to put on their witnesses, and teased at the notion of putting the former Giants slugger on the stand. But Bonds’ lead attorney Allen Ruby indicated the case would be ready for closing arguments by Thursday morning.
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As a result, it appears the defense on Wednesday will consist of several brief witnesses, possibly including Harvey Shields, a former Bonds trainer, and also the scheduled return of hobbled government witness Steve Hoskins, who will be asked about an alleged effort to extort Bonds after they had a falling out over business dealings.
But Bonds himself is expected to remain firmly planted at the defense table.
“Given the tremendous risk you take whenever you put the defendant on the stand, the defense is only likely to take this gamble if it believes it is otherwise headed to certain defeat,” said William Keane, a former federal prosecutor. “I don’t see that in this case.”
On Tuesday, most of the legal sparring did appear to cut the defense’s way once again. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston refused to allow the jury to hear a newly-discovered tape Hoskins found of a conversation he recorded with Dr. Arthur Ting, Bonds’ former orthopedic surgeon. Ting last week repudiated Hoskins’ testimony that the two of them discussed Bonds and steroids on “50” occasions, and prosecutors argued that the tape “corroborates” Hoskins’ version of events.
Illston, however, shot down the tape, describing it as “unintelligible” and largely consisting of comments Hoskins directed at Ting about the September 2003 raid on Balco, which had occurred days before the recording was surreptitiously made in the doctor’s Fremont office. The tape does have Ting mentioning “Barry” several times, and includes comments from Hoskins about Bonds being the “main player” in the Balco investigation, but a transcript shows much of Ting’s end of the conversation to be “indecipherable.”
The judge’s order wiped out the prosecution’s last hope of restoring Hoskins’ credibility with the jury, given the sharp conflict with the testimony of Ting, whose version now remains unchallenged.
Illston also is allowing defense lawyers to recall Hoskins to the stand Wednesday to question him about another recording, this one made later in 2003 of a conversation with one of Bonds’ lawyers, Laura Enos. Enos at the time was representing Bonds in his claims that Hoskins cheated him out of money in a memorabilia business, and defense lawyers want to use the tape as further evidence that Hoskins’ claims of Bonds’ steroid use were retaliation for being cut off from the ballplayer’s business dealings.
In addition, the judge appears ready to shave off one of the four perjury counts against Bonds. Overall, Bonds faces four counts of perjury and one count of obstructing justice for lying to a federal grand jury in December 2003 about using steroids.
The judge refused to dismiss all five charges, but indicated one may be cut: that charge involves the allegation that Bonds lied about getting the “cream” and the “clear” from personal trainer Greg Anderson prior to the 2003 baseball season. Defense lawyers say the prosecution provided no evidence that Bonds used those newfangled steroids before the 2003 season, and prosecutors, while saying they would file court papers overnight to preserve the charge, appeared to struggle against the argument.
Prosecutors, however, appear to have managed to get in the evidence they need to use a test of a 2003 urine sample from Bonds that showed he tested positive for “the clear” and clomid, a female fertility drug often used to mask the side effects of steroids. The sample was taken in Major League Baseball’s drug testing program, but retested three years later at UCLA’s Olympic Lab.
That evidence would go to other counts that involve Bonds’ claim in the grand jury that he never took any steroids.
Illston rejected defense efforts to strike a host of evidence in the trial, including the testimony of other baseball players and evidence from others that links steroid use to physical side effects. But the judge also indicated she’s ready to bar the jury from considering one of those side effects, whether steroids may have caused Bonds’ testicles to shrink.
— Story by Howard Mintz, San Jose Mercury News
