http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...against-baseball-s-bonds-defense-up-next.html
Prosecutors Finish Perjury Case Against Baseball’s Bonds, Defense Up Next
By Karen Gullo - Apr 5, 2011
Home-run king Barry Bonds may testify in his own defense, one of his lawyers said after prosecutors finished presenting seven days of testimony from more than a dozen witnesses including baseball players who said they received steroids from Bonds’s ex-trainer.
Bonds may testify tomorrow in the federal court perjury trial, said Allen Ruby, one of the lawyers for the former San Francisco Giants outfielder.
“We will make a decision tonight,” Ruby said today in court without the jury present. He said Bonds’s lawyers may not call any witnesses.
The jury was sent home after the government rested its case. Bonds’s attorneys said in a filing today that the government failed to offer evidence at trial sufficient for a reasonable jury to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. A hearing this afternoon will deal with that and requests by the lawyers to strike certain trial testimony.
Prosecutors lost a bid today to play for the jury a secret tape recording of a 2003 conversation between Bonds’s doctor and the slugger’s former business partner that prosecutors say was about steroids, Bonds and a Burlingame, California-based laboratory at the center of a federal steroids probe.
Tape Ruled Inadmissible
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ruled that the tape was inadmissible. The government wanted the jury to hear the tape to boost ex-business partner Steve Hoskins’s credibility after physician Arthur Ting contradicted Hoskins’s testimony that he had talked to Ting about Bonds and steroids.
Witnesses for the prosecution included Colorado Rockies first baseman Jason Giambi. Jurors also heard from Bonds’s former personal shopper, who testified that she saw Bonds receiving an injection from his trainer, Greg Anderson, while the slugger’s former business partner and former mistress testified that Bonds told them he took steroids.
Lawyers for Bonds, who last played for the Giants in 2007, may call Harvey Shields, another former Bonds trainer. Other witnesses may include Laura Enos, an attorney for Bonds, and two federal investigative agents, Ruby said today.
Bonds, 46, who holds Major League Baseball’s career and single-season home run records, is accused of lying when he told a federal grand jury in 2003 that he never knowingly took steroids provided by Anderson and that no one other than his doctor gave him injections. Bonds’s lawyers claim he truthfully testified that he received performance-enhancing substances from Anderson, while not knowing what they were because they were new at the time.
The trial in San Francisco started March 21.
Prosecutors Finish Perjury Case Against Baseball’s Bonds, Defense Up Next
By Karen Gullo - Apr 5, 2011
Home-run king Barry Bonds may testify in his own defense, one of his lawyers said after prosecutors finished presenting seven days of testimony from more than a dozen witnesses including baseball players who said they received steroids from Bonds’s ex-trainer.
Bonds may testify tomorrow in the federal court perjury trial, said Allen Ruby, one of the lawyers for the former San Francisco Giants outfielder.
“We will make a decision tonight,” Ruby said today in court without the jury present. He said Bonds’s lawyers may not call any witnesses.
The jury was sent home after the government rested its case. Bonds’s attorneys said in a filing today that the government failed to offer evidence at trial sufficient for a reasonable jury to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. A hearing this afternoon will deal with that and requests by the lawyers to strike certain trial testimony.
Prosecutors lost a bid today to play for the jury a secret tape recording of a 2003 conversation between Bonds’s doctor and the slugger’s former business partner that prosecutors say was about steroids, Bonds and a Burlingame, California-based laboratory at the center of a federal steroids probe.
Tape Ruled Inadmissible
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ruled that the tape was inadmissible. The government wanted the jury to hear the tape to boost ex-business partner Steve Hoskins’s credibility after physician Arthur Ting contradicted Hoskins’s testimony that he had talked to Ting about Bonds and steroids.
Witnesses for the prosecution included Colorado Rockies first baseman Jason Giambi. Jurors also heard from Bonds’s former personal shopper, who testified that she saw Bonds receiving an injection from his trainer, Greg Anderson, while the slugger’s former business partner and former mistress testified that Bonds told them he took steroids.
Lawyers for Bonds, who last played for the Giants in 2007, may call Harvey Shields, another former Bonds trainer. Other witnesses may include Laura Enos, an attorney for Bonds, and two federal investigative agents, Ruby said today.
Bonds, 46, who holds Major League Baseball’s career and single-season home run records, is accused of lying when he told a federal grand jury in 2003 that he never knowingly took steroids provided by Anderson and that no one other than his doctor gave him injections. Bonds’s lawyers claim he truthfully testified that he received performance-enhancing substances from Anderson, while not knowing what they were because they were new at the time.
The trial in San Francisco started March 21.
