Attorney: Bonds' ex-trainer will never testify
Slugger avoids indictment for now, but new grand jury will convene July 27
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Bonds avoids trouble for now July 21: NBC's Jinah Kim reports on the legal trouble that star slugger Barry Bonds has avoided, at least for now. NBC Sports |
SAN FRANCISCO - They aren’t through with Barry Bonds, not yet.
The federal grand jury considering possible perjury and tax-evasion charges against the star slugger expired Thursday without an indictment. Hours later, Bonds’ personal trainer, Greg Anderson, walked out of a prison where he spent two weeks for refusing to testify against his childhood friend.
“We are not finished,” U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan said. “We have postponed the decision (to indict) for another day in light of some recent developments.”
A new grand jury was impaneled, and will convene July 27.
He said his client has been subpoenaed to testify before a new panel that will take up the question of whether Bonds lied under oath when he said he never knowingly took performance-enhancing drugs. Geragos said Anderson won’t budge.
“They can subpoena him every day for the rest of this year, and it doesn’t matter,” Geragos said. “He’s not going to talk.”
Bonds arrived at AT&T Park with his 16-year-old batboy son. As reporters moved toward his locker, team spokesman Blake Rhodes said Bonds would have no comment.
Major League Baseball also declined to comment.
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Giants owner Peter Magowan said he hoped to see a resolution soon.
“I think all of us would like to see a resolution, I mean everybody in baseball,” Magowan said. “I’m sure the commissioner would like to see one, I’m sure Barry would like to see one, and I’m sure the fans would like to see one.”
Speculation has been mounting for weeks that Bonds, who hit his 722nd career home run Thursday night against San Diego, would be indicted Thursday with the grand jury expiring. His lawyers had said they were preparing a defense.
But soon after the grand jury reported to the federal courthouse for the final day of its probe, the U.S. Attorney’s office issued a statement saying it “is not seeking an indictment (Thursday) in connection with the ongoing steroids-related investigation.”
“They don’t even have enough to indict a ham sandwich, let alone Barry Bonds,” the slugger’s lawyer, Michael Rains, said.
Joseph Russienello, the U.S. Attorney in San Francisco from 1982 to 1990, said handing the case off to a new grand jury means the federal government can lock up Anderson for the length of the new grand jury’s term, which could extend beyond a year. The threat of a lengthy jail term can convince even the most intransigent witnesses to cave.
“It’s no longer a two-week vacation,” Russienello said. “Twelve months usually has a way of getting people sensitized to giving truthful testimony.”
Rains said there was “temporary relief in the news we heard today.” But he seemed to back away slightly from Bonds’ earlier statements that he didn’t know the substances given to him by Anderson were steroids.
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“He was suspicious in light of what he had read as to whether those were steroids or not,” Rains told reporters outside the federal courthouse.
Anderson appears to be the key to whether perjury charges could stick against Bonds.
“We will continue to move forward actively in this investigation — including continuing to seek the truthful testimony of witnesses whose testimony the grand jury is entitled to hear,” said Luke Macaulay, a spokesman for Ryan.
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