The prosecution is nearing the end of its side of the case in the perjury trial of home-run champion Barry Bonds in federal court in San Francisco.
Prosecutors, who previously brought four baseball players to the stand to testify they received steroids from Bonds’ trainer, told U.S. District Judge Susan Illston today that they do not plan to call any additional players.
They said they have three remaining witnesses: Dr. Arthur Ting, Bonds’ former orthopedic surgeon; Kathy Hoskins, his former personal shopper; and Dr. Don Catlin, a drug testing expert who formerly headed the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory.
The final prosecution evidence will also include a reading of parts of Bonds’ 2003 testimony before a federal grand jury that was investigating the sales of performance-enhancing drugs by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO.
Bonds, 46, is accused of lying when he told the panel he never knowingly received steroids or human growth hormone from his trainer, Greg Anderson, never received any injection from him, and never received anything other than vitamins from him before 2003.
The former San Francisco Giants slugger faces a total of four counts of false statements and one count of obstruction of justice. The trial is in its second week.
Bonds set Major League Baseball’s single-season home-run record in 2001 and its lifetime record in his last season with the Giants in 2007.
While the prosecution testimony may be completed by early next week, it is not known how long the defense side of the case will take.
Bonds’ attorneys listed only a handful of witnesses in a pretrial filing, including two trainers; Bonds’ former attorney, Michael Rains; and a doctor who is an expert on the effects of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone.
But the defense lawyers reserved the right to add more witnesses if needed to challenge the prosecution’s case.
They said that revealing possible additional witnesses before trial would be unfair to Bonds because it could give prosecutors insight into the defense strategy and “provide untruthful government witnesses–if any — with advance warning” of evidence that might be used against them.
Because Anderson has refused to testify–and has been jailed for contempt of court as a result–prosecutors are seeking to use an array of other evidence to show that Bonds received performance-enhancing drugs from him and knew what they were.
Bonds admitted to the grand jury in December 2003 that he had taken substances known as “the clear” and “the cream,” which were later identified as so-called designer steroids formulated to avoid detection.
But he said he thought they were merely flaxseed oil and an arthritis ointment, his lawyers have said.
On Tuesday and this morning, four professional players, including Colorado Rockies first baseman Jason Giambi, told the jury they knowingly received various types of steroids from Anderson before 2003.
Prosecutors had three other players, all former Giants teammates of Bonds, on their possible witness list.
They were Benito Santiago and Armando Rios, who were slated to say they too received performance-enhancing drugs from Anderson, and Bobby Estalella, who was due to testify that Bonds told him he used such drugs, according to the prosecution list.
The government attorneys did not say in court why they pared down the list.
Prosecutors’ purpose in bringing athletes to the stand was to try to show that Anderson had access to steroids and human growth hormone and that he informed the players what the substances were.
But Illston instructed jurors on Tuesday that they should consider that evidence only for that purpose, and should not conclude that just because the other athletes may have knowingly used the drugs, Bonds may also have done so.
Julia Cheever, Bay City News
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