|
|
| Prosecutors seek jail time for Barry Bonds |
| By californiawatch.org - Lance Williams |
| Published: 12/09/2011 |
|
Federal prosecutors want former San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds to serve 15 months in prison for obstructing their probe into the BALCO steroids scandal. In documents filed late Thursday, the legal team that prosecuted baseball’s home run king urged Judge Susan Illston to reject the recommendation of a probation officer who said Bonds should be sentenced only to community service. After a three week trial in April, the retired baseball star was convicted of obstruction of justice for giving evasive answers to a grand jury that was probing steroid dealing at the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative in Burlingame. The jury deadlocked on charges that Bonds lied under oath when he denied used steroids and other banned drugs. Sentencing is set for next Friday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. In their filing, the prosecutors said Bonds’ offense was too serious to merit what the probation officer suggested – probation with community service. When Bonds testified before the BALCO grand jury in 2003, he intended to “obfuscate and distract the grand jury from its role in getting to the truth,” they wrote. “His answers that he did not know he was taking steroids and human growth hormone were patently false, and the United States’ allegation that he lied when he said he had not been injected by anyone other than a doctor was proven at trial through the testimony of Kathy Hoskins.” At the trial, Hoskins, Bonds’ former personal shopper, said she saw Greg Anderson, Bonds’ weight trainer and a confessed steroid dealer, inject the baseball star in the navel. The jury deadlocked 11 to 1 in favor of convicting Bonds of perjury for that testimony. In their pleading, the government acknowledged that the judge had granted probation to three other sports figures on probation for lying about steroids in the BALCO case; bicycle racer Tammy Thomas, elite track coach Trevor Graham and former NFL lineman Dana Stubblefield. Read More. |
MARKETPLACE search vendors | advanced search
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
|
Comments:
No comments have been posted for this article.
Login to let us know what you think