Judge May Toss Evidence Against Bonds

"Preliminary Thoughts" Are To Exclude Positive Drug Tests Of Former San Francisco Slugger

(CBS/AP)  A federal judge says she might toss some of the strongest evidence against Barry Bonds, a blow to prosecutors trying to prove the home run king lied when he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said her "preliminary thoughts" were to exclude from trial three 2000-2001 positive drug tests that prosecutors say belong to Bonds unless there is a direct link that the urine samples came from the former San Francisco Giants slugger.

"If there's no testimony to establish that, I don't think any of them work," Illston said.

The only person who can do that seems to be Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, who spent more than a year behind bars for refusing to speak to a federal grand jury investigating Bonds. And Anderson's attorney, Mark Geragos, has said his client will not testify against Bonds at the trial, scheduled to start March 2.

If her preliminary thoughts stand, the government's case against Bonds will suffer a significant blow - but not a fatal one, legal analysts said.

"It hurts, but the government still has quite a bit of other evidence," Golden Gate University law professor Peter Keane said.

That includes a recorded conversation between Anderson and Bonds' former personal assistant Steve Hoskins in which they discuss injecting steroids; a conversation Illston said she's inclined to allow at trial.

Illston will issue a formal decision on the evidence discussed Thursday at a later date. She also will hold a separate hearing on whether to allow testimony from expert doctors the government hopes would persuade a jury that changes in Bonds' body were due to steroid use.

Without someone to authenticate that the test results were from Bonds' urine, Illston said claims that the tests were Bonds' were "classic hearsay."

Based on the same logic, Illston said she likely also would exclude a doping calendar and other papers seized by federal investigators at Anderson's home.

According to court documents, Bonds tested positive on three separate occasions in 2000 and 2001 for the steroid methenelone in urine samples; he also tested positive two of those three times for the steroid nandrolone.

The three positive drug tests - seized during a 2003 raid of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, the headquarters of a large-scale sports doping ring - are a key part of the government's effort to prove Bonds lied when he told a grand jury that year he never knowingly took performance-enhancing drugs.

The judge and the lawyers didn't discuss a fourth positive steroids test seized in 2004 from a lab used by Major League Baseball to test its players in 2003.

The difference between that test and the three positive tests from 2000-2001 is there's no need to authenticate it.

Prosecutors said former BALCO executive James Valente is prepared to testify that Anderson handed him the three biological samples and told him they belonged to Bonds. But the judge said Valente's testimony was not enough to link the sample and Bonds.

Victor Conte, BALCO's founder, has always maintained that Bonds' biological samples were tested "down and dirty" and unreliable.

"These alleged Bonds test results and records not only lack a chain of custody and contain inaccuracies, but they also involve people with no formal training," Conte said in an e-mail Wednesday. "This causes uncertainty and creates doubt regarding the validity of this testing and record keeping evidence."

Without those three positive tests, the government's next-best evidence is Hoskins' recording of Anderson discussing undetectable steroids.

Hoskins said he made the secret clubhouse recording in front of Bonds' locker in March 2003. Hoskins said he was trying to obtain evidence to show Bonds' skeptical father Bobby Bonds, a former Major Leaguer who died of cancer in August 2003, that his son was using steroids.

Bonds' attorneys offered the judge a more sinister motivation for Hoskins to make the recording without Anderson's knowledge: blackmail. Bonds told the FBI shortly after the recording was made that Hoskins was stealing from him by forging his autograph on Bonds' memorabilia.

"He wanted to get some protection from the investigation that he knew was coming," Bonds' attorney, Dennis Riordan, said. The FBI dropped its brief investigation of Hoskins soon after without charging him with any crimes.

First indicted in November 2007, Bonds pleaded not guilty for a third time Thursday after the government revised the charges to fix legal technicalities. He now faces 10 counts of making false statements to a grand jury, plus an obstruction of justice charge.

If convicted, Bonds faces a sentence between probation and two years in prison.

The judge plans to hold a separate court hearing to determine whether the prosecution can call to the witness stand Dr. Larry Bowers, the medical director for the United States Anti-Doping Agency. Bonds' attorneys argue that the science of steroid effects is inconclusive.

Prosecutors said in court papers that Bowers "will testify that steroid users develop such symptoms as increased muscle mass, shrunken testicles, acne on the upper back, moodiness, and an erratic sexual drive."

The prosecutors said they also will call "witnesses close to Bonds who will testify that Bonds exhibited some or all of these symptoms between approximately 1998 and 2003."

Keane said that physical side effects that Bonds appears to have experienced - such as sudden head growth - is still part of the government's case.

"The main evidence against Barry is his body," Keane said. "That's the whole ballgame."

In Related News:

A federal judge has sentenced former National Football League player Dana Stubblefield to two years probation for lying to sports-doping investigators about his steroid use.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston cited Stubblefield's later cooperation with the drug probe in declining to sentence him to three months home confinement, as recommended by federal probation officials. He turned over the names of players, agents and trainers he suspected of drug use to federal investigators and NFL officials.

Stubblefield admitted that three days after the NFL informed him he had tested positive for steroids, he denied taking them when interviewed by agents who raided the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative.

Stubblefield played on the defensive line for three teams from 1993-03.

[thgdriver1]

So he gets of in a court of law by a ''technicality" but that don''t work in the court of public knowledge, he still has a rope around his neck and the trap door has already dropped. GUILTY AS CHARGED. Strip him of his records or put a big fat asterisk on them.

[matrixrx2003]

Bonds is so guilty of the Juice.

I knew some guys in college who did Roids and their face was all puffy like Bonds face was.

GUILTY !

[bspdyz]

l would love to know why it ''s fine for a ball player to do something like this.(we all know the judge is paid off,they treat us like a buch of dumb sheep) lot''s of kids look up to him. these guys get paid way to much money do hit a ball .i would like to see him lose some of this so he would know what it like to be poor. i wonder what would have happend to him if it had been for pot.

[evian_ycnan]

Wait a minute! That picture... is Vince Vaughn Bonds` lawyer?

[evian_ycnan]

Chain of custody!

Yes. Toss the stuff. If it cannot be accounted for at all times, and traced, then it has no business in court of law.

[endrepubs]

When stocks are down buy Bonds. Hank Aaron is still the Home Run King. And so is that skinny kid named Roger Maris!
Baseball definitely needs to put an asterisk by Bonds records because they were tainted. (He cheated) The same goes for Mark McGwire.

[cattiej]

Fire this Judge Susan Illston. Is she another pay for play Judge. Our country is so full of greedy politicans and corrupt Judges. If I were the prosecuting attorney''s I would ask that the Judge not be allowed to hear this case. She clearly is in the wrong about being able to throw out evidence against Bonds. Oh, I forgot, Bonds is a rich black man and we can''t even say anything bad about a rich black man now, even if we are ourselves black, brown,pink,yellow or green. We are done, DONE, with baseball.

[gctomajtom]

Bonds is being hijacked by lawyers who need to make a name for themselves.

Stop this legal nonsense, and take away the asterisk by Bonds home-run records.

[rags6243]

sincity_q wrote
All sarcasm aside, this will be just one more example to the American people why their government and their courts cannot be trusted. The long term effect will be to teach people that laws are NOT to be respected and that they CAN break them with impugnity so long as they have enough money or connections.

Now, now, Sin...this is not about money or ego or trust. It is about law and following the law. If no chain of custody can be created then the evidence is no better than a rumor spread by someone to damage the reputation of another. The law requires that the urine that tested positive for steroids did, in fact, belong to Mr. Bonds. The only one that can make that link would rather spend time in prison than testify. While I agree with you that the whole affair is sad, in the end it makes no difference whether or not you like Mr. Bonds, trust Mr. Bonds, think Mr. Bonds to be something other than a stellar citizen of the United States, it is about making the government prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Bonds is a lying son of a B. I for one, value the strict requirements of evidence because when all is said and done that strictness protects me (and you) from false accusations by a dictatorial government.

[sincity_q]

"A federal judge says she might toss some of the strongest evidence against Barry Bonds, a blow to prosecutors trying to prove the home run king lied when he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs."

Big surpise. The judge is probably a fan of his Druginess, Barry Bonds.

All sarcasm aside, this will be just one more example to the American people why their government and their courts cannot be trusted. The long term effect will be to teach people that laws are NOT to be respected and that they CAN break them with impugnity so long as they have enough money or connections.

If it were ca case of right an wrong, Mr. Ego and his record would be tossed to the curb. But since this is NOT about right and wrong, do not be disappointed when your government and its court system fail you once again.