Barry Bonds’ trial for perjury, obstruction of justice moves ahead
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Barry Bonds’ estranged friend and business partner Steve Hoskins took the witness stand in federal court Wednesday to testify that the baseball player asked him to research the effects of steroids in 1999 and that Bonds also complained of soreness from steroid injections.
Bonds, the 46-year-old player who broke Babe Ruth and Henry Aaron’s records for most career home runs, is charged with obstruction of justice and making false statements in 2003 to a grand jury, which had been investigating the illegal distribution of steroids.
His trial began in San Francisco federal Court on Monday, when jury members were selected.
Bonds was indicted in 2007, denying that he used the performance-enhancing drugs. He claimed to grand jurors that he believed the substances he was taking were flaxseed oil and arthritis cream, a prosecutor had said.
‘This is an alleged crime which took place in this building in a grand jury room with a stenographer who took down every word — thankfully,’ Bonds’ attorney Allen Ruby said in opening statements Tuesday.
He said Bonds’ testimony was in line with lab tests of a 2003 urine sample taken by Major League Baseball and found to have contained banned drugs.
Hoskins, Bonds’ friend and business partner who later had a falling-out with the former San Francisco Giant, testified Wednesday that he recorded conversations with Bonds’ trainer Greg Anderson that proved the player’s use of the illicit drugs, L.A. Now reported.
Hoskins said he would see Anderson emerge with needles after he believed the trainer had injected Bonds and heard Bonds claim that he would inject himself if the trainer refused to do so.
A district court judge has ordered Anderson — who is charged with illegally providing drugs to Bonds and injecting him with human growth hormone — be sent to federal prison for refusing to testify.
Bonds’ former mistress Kimberly Bell is also set to take the witness stand. Bell was in a relationship with the baseball player for about 10 years, spanning his first and second marriages.
A felony conviction could delay the former Giant’s induction into the baseball Hall of Fame.
For more Bonds trial coverage, visit L.A. Now.
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— Nardine Saad
twitter.com/NardineSaad
Left photo: Former Major League Baseball player Barry Bonds leaveing the courthouse of his perjury trial. Credit: Kyle Terada / US Presswire.
Right photo: Steve Hoskins walks in the lobby of a federal courthouse in San Francisco on March 23. Credit: Liz Hafalia / San Francisco Chronicle / Associated Press.
