Federal prosecutors said on Friday that they planned to call Barry Bonds’s former personal shopper at his perjury trial next month to testify that she saw Bonds being injected by Greg Anderson, his trainer.
Kathy Hoskins, the former personal shopper, is the sister of Steve Hoskins, a childhood friend and former business manager of Bonds’s and a person expected to be a key witness against him at trial.
The disclosure, in a pretrial filing by the prosecution, did not say what Kathy Hoskins thought Bonds was being injected with. But that may not matter. In the government’s indictment of Bonds, it said that Bonds lied when he testified before a grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative in 2003 that he was never injected by anyone other than his own doctors.
Kathy Hoskins “will further testify that she observed interactions between the defendant and Greg Anderson,” the filing said, “including Anderson giving the defendant an injection.”
Bonds is scheduled to go on trial March 2 on charges that he made false statements before a grand jury when he maintained that he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs.
The filing by the prosecutors listed current and former baseball players — including Jason Giambi, his brother Jeremy and Benito Santiago — who will testify about how they received performance-enhancing drugs from Anderson. The prosecutors said that Bobby Estalella, who played with Bonds on the San Francisco Giants in 2000 and 2001, will testify that Bonds admitted to him that he was using performance-enhancing drugs.
But it was the new information about Kathy Hoskins that was the most surprising development in the filing. Last week, the prosecution was set back when United States District Judge Susan Illston indicated she was inclined to throw out several pieces of evidence against Bonds, including positive steroid tests and doping calendars that the prosecution believes link him to drug use.
But Kathy Hoskins’s testimony underscores that the government is also accusing Bonds of perjury for denying that anyone but doctors injected him.
Bonds’s lawyers also made pretrial filings on Friday and, along with the government, addressed Alex Rodriguez’s recent acknowledgment that he used banned substances.
Bonds’s lawyers said they wanted to ask potential jurors their opinion of Rodriguez, who said he used banned substances from 2001 to 2003. The prosecutors said there was no reason to ask about Rodriguez because he has no relation to the Bonds case.
The names of several people who have been connected to Balco and the government’s long investigation of Bonds are also included in the filing.
Kimberly Bell, Bonds’s former girlfriend, was listed as a government witness, as was Steve Hoskins. Prosecutors said they wanted Bell to testify about changes she noticed in Bonds’s body starting in 2000 — changes, they will argue, that were the side effects of steroid use.
The government said that Bell could testify to “bloating, acne on the shoulders and back, hair loss, and testicle shrinkage.”
Steve Hoskins, the filing said, will testify that Bonds admitted to him that he was using steroids. The filing also said that Hoskins would describe how Bonds used steroids with Anderson’s help.
Although the testimony of both Bell and Hoskins could be damaging for Bonds, there are some questions about their credibility.
Bonds’s lawyers plan to portray Bell as a jaded ex-girlfriend who would do anything for money. Hoskins and Bonds were childhood friends who reconnected after Bonds signed with the Giants as a free agent before the 1993 season. In 2003, however, Bonds reported Hoskins to the F.B.I., accusing him of stealing his money. Hoskins later cooperated with investigators looking into whether Bonds committed perjury, providing them with what is said to be a secret tape recording of a clubhouse conversation he had with Anderson, in which Anderson acknowledged injecting Bonds.
The filing by the prosecutors indicated that federal agents met separately in 2003 with two star N.F.L. receivers, Terrell Owens and Jerry Rice.
The issue of performance-enhancing drugs, however, was not believed to be the reason for those meetings. Instead, the authorities are believed to have met with Owens and Rice about their relationship with Hoskins, who sold sports memorabilia. The authorities were looking into accusations that Hoskins had stolen money from Bonds.
The filing also showed that Brian Sabean, the Giants’ general manager, testified before a federal grand jury in 2006, but it did not appear as if he provided much relevant information about Bonds. Sabean was not included in the list of 39 witnesses the government plans to call at the trial.
Bonds’s lawyers said they planned to call Ed Barberini, a member of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Department, as a witness.
Before Bonds was indicted, one of his lawyers, Michael Rains, sent several letters to the United States attorney’s office for the Northern District of California, contesting that prosecutors had looked the other way on accusations that the federal agent Jeff Novitzky, the lead investigator in the Balco case, had lied in court documents.
In the letters, Rains said that two members of the San Mateo narcotics task force, including Barberini, had met with prosecutors to tell them about the supposedly false statements that Novitzky had made.
NY Times..
Kathy Hoskins, the former personal shopper, is the sister of Steve Hoskins, a childhood friend and former business manager of Bonds’s and a person expected to be a key witness against him at trial.
The disclosure, in a pretrial filing by the prosecution, did not say what Kathy Hoskins thought Bonds was being injected with. But that may not matter. In the government’s indictment of Bonds, it said that Bonds lied when he testified before a grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative in 2003 that he was never injected by anyone other than his own doctors.
Kathy Hoskins “will further testify that she observed interactions between the defendant and Greg Anderson,” the filing said, “including Anderson giving the defendant an injection.”
Bonds is scheduled to go on trial March 2 on charges that he made false statements before a grand jury when he maintained that he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs.
The filing by the prosecutors listed current and former baseball players — including Jason Giambi, his brother Jeremy and Benito Santiago — who will testify about how they received performance-enhancing drugs from Anderson. The prosecutors said that Bobby Estalella, who played with Bonds on the San Francisco Giants in 2000 and 2001, will testify that Bonds admitted to him that he was using performance-enhancing drugs.
But it was the new information about Kathy Hoskins that was the most surprising development in the filing. Last week, the prosecution was set back when United States District Judge Susan Illston indicated she was inclined to throw out several pieces of evidence against Bonds, including positive steroid tests and doping calendars that the prosecution believes link him to drug use.
But Kathy Hoskins’s testimony underscores that the government is also accusing Bonds of perjury for denying that anyone but doctors injected him.
Bonds’s lawyers also made pretrial filings on Friday and, along with the government, addressed Alex Rodriguez’s recent acknowledgment that he used banned substances.
Bonds’s lawyers said they wanted to ask potential jurors their opinion of Rodriguez, who said he used banned substances from 2001 to 2003. The prosecutors said there was no reason to ask about Rodriguez because he has no relation to the Bonds case.
The names of several people who have been connected to Balco and the government’s long investigation of Bonds are also included in the filing.
Kimberly Bell, Bonds’s former girlfriend, was listed as a government witness, as was Steve Hoskins. Prosecutors said they wanted Bell to testify about changes she noticed in Bonds’s body starting in 2000 — changes, they will argue, that were the side effects of steroid use.
The government said that Bell could testify to “bloating, acne on the shoulders and back, hair loss, and testicle shrinkage.”
Steve Hoskins, the filing said, will testify that Bonds admitted to him that he was using steroids. The filing also said that Hoskins would describe how Bonds used steroids with Anderson’s help.
Although the testimony of both Bell and Hoskins could be damaging for Bonds, there are some questions about their credibility.
Bonds’s lawyers plan to portray Bell as a jaded ex-girlfriend who would do anything for money. Hoskins and Bonds were childhood friends who reconnected after Bonds signed with the Giants as a free agent before the 1993 season. In 2003, however, Bonds reported Hoskins to the F.B.I., accusing him of stealing his money. Hoskins later cooperated with investigators looking into whether Bonds committed perjury, providing them with what is said to be a secret tape recording of a clubhouse conversation he had with Anderson, in which Anderson acknowledged injecting Bonds.
The filing by the prosecutors indicated that federal agents met separately in 2003 with two star N.F.L. receivers, Terrell Owens and Jerry Rice.
The issue of performance-enhancing drugs, however, was not believed to be the reason for those meetings. Instead, the authorities are believed to have met with Owens and Rice about their relationship with Hoskins, who sold sports memorabilia. The authorities were looking into accusations that Hoskins had stolen money from Bonds.
The filing also showed that Brian Sabean, the Giants’ general manager, testified before a federal grand jury in 2006, but it did not appear as if he provided much relevant information about Bonds. Sabean was not included in the list of 39 witnesses the government plans to call at the trial.
Bonds’s lawyers said they planned to call Ed Barberini, a member of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Department, as a witness.
Before Bonds was indicted, one of his lawyers, Michael Rains, sent several letters to the United States attorney’s office for the Northern District of California, contesting that prosecutors had looked the other way on accusations that the federal agent Jeff Novitzky, the lead investigator in the Balco case, had lied in court documents.
In the letters, Rains said that two members of the San Mateo narcotics task force, including Barberini, had met with prosecutors to tell them about the supposedly false statements that Novitzky had made.
NY Times..
