A federal jury convicted Barry Bonds of a single charge of obstruction of justice Wednesday but failed to reach a verdict on the three counts at the heart of allegations that he knowingly used steroids and human growth hormone and lied to a grand jury about it.
Following a 12-day trial and almost four full days of deliberation, a jury could not reach a unanimous vote on three of four counts, a messy end to a case that put the slugger in the spotlight for more than three years.
Bonds sat stone-faced through the verdict, displaying no emotion. His legal team immediately asked that the guilty verdict be thrown out and Illston did not rule on the request. She set May 20 for a hearing in the case.
The case also represented the culmination of the federal investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative steroids ring. Federal prosecutors and the Justice Department will have to decide whether to retry Bonds on the unresolved counts.
The counts that the jury could not resolve accused of Bonds of lying to the grand jury investigating BALCO in 2003 when he said he never knowingly took steroids or HGH, and when he said he was never injected by anyone except his doctors.
A juror who would only give her first name, Amber, said the final votes on the deadlocked charges were 8-4 to acquit Bonds of lying about steroids and 9-3 to acquit him on lying about HGH use. The panel voted 11-1 to convict him of getting an injection from someone other than his doctor, with one woman holding out, the juror said.
The maximum sentence for the obstruction of justice count is 10 years in prison, but federal guidelines called for 15-21 months. For similar offences in the BALCO case, Illston sentenced cyclist Tammy Thomas to six months of home confinement and track coach Trevor Graham to one year of home confinement.
Bonds walked out of the courthouse with his lawyers, who instructed him not to comment because they said the case isn't over.
Impeccably dressed in suit and tie, Bonds flashed a victory sign to a few fans.
"Are you celebrating tonight?" one asked.
"There's nothing to celebrate," he replied.
Lead defence attorney Allen Ruby said the prosecution failed to prove the heart of its case.
The obstruction of justice count was a complicated charge that asked jurors to decide if Bonds was being evasive when making any one of seven statements to the grand jury. He was convicted on a single statement about his childhood as the son of major leaguer Bobby Bonds and his relationship with personal trainer Greg Anderson — it did not address performance-enhancing drugs.
The government "has determined it's unlawful for Barry Bonds to tell the grand jury he's a celebrity child and to talk about his friendship with Greg Anderson," Ruby said.
The foreman of the jury, who would only give his first name, Fred, said if prosecutors want to "pursue this case, they're going to have to do more homework than they did."
The needle count, the only one the jury was leaning toward convicting on, accused Bonds of lying when he said no one other than his doctors injected him with anything. His personal shopper, Kathy Hoskins, testified that she saw Anderson inject Bonds in the navel before a road trip in 2002, although Hoskins was not sure what substance was being injected.
Amber, the juror, noted that Bonds's former mistress, Kimberly Bell, testified that he complained of soreness from injections. "That's what kind of stuck out for me," Amber said.
The jury foreman said the woman who held out on the needle count did so because Hoskins was the only eyewitness.
Another juror, named Steve, said that "Barry carries himself with an air of arrogance" but his legal team overcame it.
"They didn't put up a big defence," he said. "They tried to discredit the witnesses. They tried to make the prosecutors look like bad guys. Were they successful in doing that? Yes."
U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag said prosecutors were gratified by the guilty count and had not decided whether to seek a retrial on the remaining charges.
"This case is about upholding one of the most fundamental principles in our system of justice — the obligation of every witness to provide truthful and direct testimony in judicial proceedings," Haag said in a statement. "In the United States, taking an oath and promising to testify truthfully is a serious matter. We cannot ignore those who choose instead to obstruct justice."
Now 46, Bonds set baseball's record for home runs in a career with 762 while playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants from 1986-2007. The jury met less than three kilometres from the ballpark where the seven-time National League MVP set record after record.
Bonds was indicted on Nov. 15, 2007, exactly 50 days after taking his final big league swing and 100 after topping Hank Aaron's career home run mark of 755. He also set the season record with 73 home runs in 2001 with the Giants.
Illston would not let prosecutors present evidence of three alleged positive drug tests by Bonds because his personal trainer and childhood friend, Greg Anderson, refused to testify and there was no one to confirm the samples came from Bonds.
Bonds acknowledged that he did take steroids but said Anderson misled him into believing they were flaxseed oil and arthritis cream.
Anderson was sentenced by Illston in 2005 to three months in prison and three months in home confinement after pleading guilty to one count of money laundering and one count of steroid distribution. The trainer was jailed on March 22 for the duration of the trial after again refusing to testify against Bonds. He was released last Friday.
Jeff Novitzky, the federal agent who started the BALCO probe, had been hoping the Bonds case would be part of a wider investigation of doping in baseball. Last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Novitzky and his team of investigators illegally seized urine samples and records from 104 players in 2004.
Separately, Novitzky has helped develop the case against former star pitcher Roger Clemens, who is scheduled to stand trial in July for lying to Congress by denying he used performance-enhancing drugs.
Novitzky also is a key player in the federal doping investigation of pro cyclists, including seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong. Rep. Jack Kingston, a Georgia Republican, recently suggested that the federal agent is motivated by a desire to bring down a celebrity.
Barry Bonds was convicted Wednesday on a single count of obstruction of justice. Here is what that means.
The federal jury was told in its instructions to find the slugger guilty of obstruction if any one of seven specific statements he made in 2003 to a grand jury investigating sports doping was "evasive, false, or misleading" and if Bonds knowingly made the statement to keep the grand jury from accomplishing its task. In other words, the jury was asked to figure out if Bonds lied in an attempt to obstruct the grand jury.
In the end, the jury deadlocked on whether Bonds was obstructing justice on six of the statements.
The statement that triggered Bonds' conviction came from an exchange with prosecutors that started with a question about performance-enhancing drugs, needles and Bonds' relationship with his childhood friend and personal trainer, Greg Anderson.
This is the statement jurors were given:
"Q: Did Greg ever give you anything that required a syringe to inject yourself with?
Bonds: I've only had one doctor touch me. And that's my only personal doctor. Greg, like I said, we don't get into each others' personal lives. We're friends, but I don't — we don't sit around and talk baseball, because he knows I don't want -- don't come to my house talking baseball. If you want to come to my house and talk about fishing, some other stuff, we'll be good friends, you come around talking about baseball, you go on. I don't talk about his business. You know what I mean? …
Q: Right.
A: That's what keeps our friendship. You know, I am sorry, but that — you know, that — I was a celebrity child, not just in baseball by my own instincts. I became a celebrity child with a famous father. I just don't get into other people's business because of my father's situation, you see …"
Jurors were only supposed to make their decision based on the second answer, the one beginning "That's what keep …" However, it seemed after the verdict on Wednesday that they looked at the whole exchange. The foreman of the jury, who said his first name was Fred, repeatedly used an expletive to describe Bonds' answer to the question from the prosecutors.
"When you're in front of a grand jury you have to answer, and he gave a b------- answer. It was a b------- answer," Fred said. "He gave a story rather than a yes or no answer."
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