Asterisked home-run record holder Barry Bonds
pled not guilty today to 14 counts of perjury and obstruction of justice charges.
Photo by Stephen Dorian Miner
By Julia Cheever
June 6, 2008
Baseball champion Barry Bonds pleaded not guilty in federal court in San Francisco today to a revised indictment charging him with 14 counts of false statements and one count of obstruction of justice in 2003 grand jury testimony.
Bonds, 43, is due to appear before U.S. District Judge Susan Illston later this morning for setting of a trial date.
The former San Francisco Giants slugger is accused of lying when he allegedly told the grand jury he never knowingly received anabolic steroids or human growth hormone from his trainer, Greg Anderson.
The panel was investigating sports steroids distribution by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO.
Bonds entered the not-guilty plea during an arraignment before U.S. Magistrate Bernard Zimmerman.
The revised indictment was filed on May 13. The charges are similar to those in the original indictment issued in November, but the alleged false statements are separated into 14 counts instead being combined into four.
Illston ruled in February that the earlier indictment was defective because the original perjury counts each contained more than one alleged lie. The case was then put on hold while prosecutors sought a superseding indictment from a grand jury.
Bonds set the Major League Baseball record for career home runs while playing for the Giants last year. He is now a free agent.
Bonds is one of 11 sports figures, trainers and BALCO officials and suppliers who were charged with either drug distribution or lying in connection with the BALCO probe. Eight others, including Anderson and BALCO founder Victor Conte, pleaded guilty in plea bargains and two were convicted in jury trials in Illston’s court.
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