Bonds indicted by federal grand jury

[flydaily]

damn i bet the "man" is smiling at country clubs all around america..they got OJ and Now Bonds.....

oh yea i forgot about Mike Vick too

.....

 

[dajoka004]

[h1]Timing of Bonds's Indictment Feeds Speculation[/h1]

Why now? A defense lawyer for Barry Bonds and two outside legal experts raised questions yesterday about the timing of the perjury indictment against Bonds, saying they did not understand why it came this week and not months or even years ago.
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But the United States attorney's office in San Francisco declined to answer questions about the case against Bonds, the former San Francisco Giants star and baseball's career home run leader, who has been charged withfour counts of perjury and one of obstruction of justice.

The 10-page indictment issued by a grand jury Thursday consisted mostly of quotations from Bonds's 2003 grand jury testimony, in which he repeatedlydenied taking steroids or human growth hormone.

A government official involved with the case said the Department of Justice in Washington did not sign off on the decision to indict Bonds, which is notunusual. The official, who talked on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said AttorneyGeneral Michael B. Mukasey, who was officially sworn in Nov. 9, only learned of theindictment after Scott Schools, the acting United States attorney in the Northern District of California, called the office an hour before the indictment wasannounced.

The lead defense lawyer for Bonds, Michael L. Rains, said the indictment did not appear to contain much new information. "Nothing has changed in four years," Rains said in a telephone interview. "Why now? Maybe the grand jury was going toexpire? Maybe they wanted to railroad the grand jury into signing this thing. Who knows?"

Two former federal prosecutors, Tony West and Walt Brown, speculated that Schools might have wanted to issue the indictment before he was replaced bysomeone unfamiliar with the case.

Less than four hours after the indictment was announced Thursday, the White House nominated Joseph Russoniello to replaceSchools, a career prosecutor who has served as interim head of the office since Kevin Ryan was fired in January.

The White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said the timing of the announcement was "completely coincidental." She said the announcement contained15 other nominations. She said she could not predict how long the Senate would take to confirm the 66-year-old Russoniello, who was the United States attorneyin San Francisco from 1982 to 1990 and is now a defense attorney there.

West, a defense attorney in San Francisco and a former federal prosecutor there, said, "It's a logical way to thinkabout it, that you don't have to get another U.S. attorney up to speed on it." West said he was otherwise perplexed why Bonds would have been indictedThursday on evidence the government seemed to have collected months ago.

Assistant United States attorneys in the office pushed to indict Bonds in the summer of 2006, but Ryan wanted to gettestimony from Greg Anderson, Bonds's trainer.

Anderson was jailed for contempt for refusing to testify for the last year, and he has been steadfast in his refusal to appear before the grand jury -another reason the government may have decided not to wait any longer, West said.

Anderson was released from jail shortly after the indictment against Bonds was announced. He may still be called to testify at the trial. If he is givenimmunity and refuses, he could be charged with criminal contempt.

Brown, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles and now a defense lawyer in San Francisco, also said the coming change inUnited States attorneys might have been a factor. "You can't help but notice the timing," he said.

But Brown said the prosecutors might have also waited to charge Bonds until after the baseball season to avoid complaints that they had interfered withBonds's pursuit of Hank Aaron's home run record.

Rains said Bonds would plead not guilty when he makes his first appearance in court on Dec. 7.

The maximum penalty for each of the four perjury charges is five years in prison, and 10 years for the obstruction charge.

A more likely sentence under federal guidelines would be 15 to 30 months in jail if Bonds is convicted, West said, or less than that if he pleads guilty.The guidelines allow a reduction if a defendant pleads early in the case and accepts responsibility. West said the reduction could result in a sentence of lessthan 12 months and could involve probation or home detention.

One new wrinkle in the indictment was the assertion that the government had obtained a positive test for steroids and other performance-enhancing substancesfor Bonds.

Details related to the test were sketchy. It seemed to relate to a test from 2000 that was seized during a raid of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative in 2003.

According to a partial transcript of grand jury testimony released Thursday, a prosecutor questioning Bonds said the test was "associated on a documentwith your name, and corresponding to Barry B. on the other document." VictorConte Jr., who founded Balco and served four months in prison for illegally distributing steroids and money laundering, said he did not believe the testresult would be a problem for Bonds. He said it would be difficult for the government to prove that the test actually belongedto Bonds because of gaps in the chain of custody. Further, he said, many legal hormone treatments in 2000 contained ingredients that could cause elevation ofsteroid levels in the blood.

"I was aware of this all along, so to see this now, what they say is their smoking gun, I don't see it," Conte said in a telephoneinterview.

The perjury charge requires proving Bonds knowingly gave false testimony under oath, and such knowledge would most likely have to be provedcircumstantially, West said.

Steve Hoskins, Bonds's former best friend and partner in memorabilia sales, and Kimberly Bell, his former longtime companion and mistress, were amongthose who testified to the grand jury.

The government could also have some surprise witnesses. "It's traditional that prosecutors don't show all their cards in the indictment,"West said.

-------------------------------

He's not getting convicted.

 

[mjfresh]

Damn another brother going down

he should of justretired at 714

 

[peteweezy]

Why do you guys keep bringing up other players like R. Palmiero? Do you realize that this indictment is related to the Balco case? Palmiero, McGwire, Sosa, Brady Anderson, and whoever you want to label a steroid user weren't clients of Balco. Once again for those of you with a 1st grade reading and comprehension level, this case is the U.S. Government vs Balco. Barry Bonds testified under a grand jury when a case was brought against Balco, he lied and that is why an indictment has been brought against him. This isn't about other players and their use.
Since I know your talking to me as one of these people I'm saying isn't perjury perjury regardless? I'm not super up on this stuffI'll admit that but RP didn't he lie at government hearings? I thought he did guess I was wrong.

 

[am 1 fiend]

Originally Posted by RyGuy45

^ Because this is NT and as usual everything is taken to the extreme and people just pay attention to ESPN's headlines.


"They're only going after Barry and no one else."

"Bush has a war going on, why are him and his boys turning all their attention to Bonds"

"It took 4 years so they must have an agenda"


Etc.

Seriously, I think a lot of nt'ers ride the short bus to school. I never cease to be amazed at how bad a lot of members reading and comprehensionlevels are.

 

[am 1 fiend]

Originally Posted by Peteweezy

Why do you guys keep bringing up other players like R. Palmiero? Do you realize that this indictment is related to the Balco case? Palmiero, McGwire, Sosa, Brady Anderson, and whoever you want to label a steroid user weren't clients of Balco. Once again for those of you with a 1st grade reading and comprehension level, this case is the U.S. Government vs Balco. Barry Bonds testified under a grand jury when a case was brought against Balco, he lied and that is why an indictment has been brought against him. This isn't about other players and their use.

Since I know your talking to me as one of these people I'm saying isn't perjury perjury regardless? I'm not super up on this stuff I'll admit that but RP didn't he lie at government hearings? I thought he did guess I was wrong.

Let me try this again. The indictment that has been brought forward against Barry Bonds, pertains to his testimony in the ongoing case of the U.S.Government vs Balco. It would appear that the U.S. Government has had new evidence provided that would in fact prove that Barry lied under oath. Your mentionof Palmiero has nothing to do with this particular case. If there was evidence provided to the United States Congress, that Palmiero was in fact lying underoath, they would be liberated to prosecute him. Since no such evidence has been brought forth, no indictment has been given to Mr. Palmiero. Were you able tofollow that?

 

[inine5]

lol @ people bringing up other players like Palmeiro. players like Palmeiro and Mcgwire have nothing to do with the case. it;s like you stealing from Walmartand the security catches you and you say, "but somebody stole from Target last week, why don;t you go after him?" the thing is.... it;s not about"him" or "Target", it;s about you and Walmart. get it?

 

[am 1 fiend]

Originally Posted by FlyDaily

damn i bet the "man" is smiling at country clubs all around america..they got OJ and Now Bonds.....

oh yea i forgot about Mike Vick too

.....

iNiNe5, the bottom line is these members who give these rebuttals don't know what "taking responsibility for ones own actions "means. This quote above is proof of just that.

 

[hwburnz]

The fact of the matter is that Bonds lied to a grand jury in a FEDERAL case...then there was PUBLIC evidence that Bonds mite have lied... the gov't doesnot appreciate an individual underscoring them and making them look bad....so they went after Bonds...plain n simple.... if you testify in a federal case, andthen theres evidence that u lied, n that evidence becomes public, the govt WILL come after u..no matter what.. perjury is not a joke...taking steriods is...butin this country perjury is not

 

[fundamental21ticket]

I know there's a lot of Bonds hater but the fact the government and everybody leaking information (when they shouldn't) against Bonds behalf is justnot right. If Greg Anderson didn't say anything to the government, then what new information suddenly appear four years later? I mean, people in thegovernment are probably baseball fans as well and they probably dislike Bonds like everybody else.

 

[darthska]

^ So now he should be pronounced innocent because leaked information pertaining to him and BALCO isn't fair.

"People should leave him alone and he should be declared innocent because everyone else did it, too."

"People should leave him alone and he should be declared innocent because he's black."

"People should leave him alone and he should be declared innocent because people were mean to his daddy."

"People should leave him alone and he should be declared innocent because the government lies, too. So he should be allowed to lie under oath."

"People should leave him alone and he should be declared innocent because the info leaked against him isn't fair."

I'm just waiting for someone to build THIS argument: "People should leave him alone and he should be declared innocent because he is 100% innocent ofeverything."

But you guys can't.

 

[am 1 fiend]

There are people on this board that would defend some of those quotes

 

[hwburnz]

Exactly....

Im a firm believer that this has nothing to do with baseball...this has to do with an individual LYING in a federal case...baseball was just the platform thatmade his lying public.. the govt trumps all, n they wont let anyone cut them..word to spades