New charges allege Barry Bonds lied about steroids
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A federal grand jury brought a longer array of perjury charges against baseball home run king Barry Bonds on Tuesday after a judge tossed out earlier allegations of lies about past steroid use.
The latest indictment charges the U.S. career home run record holder with 14 counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice.
"When we were last in court the government said it was going to obtain a superseding indictment and now they have done so it's hardly surprising or news," Allen Ruby, an attorney for Bonds, told Reuters.
The government maintains Bonds lied in 2003 when he told a previous federal grand jury investigating the San Francisco-area BALCO nutrition lab he had never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs.
"During the criminal investigation, evidence was obtained including positive tests for the presence of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances for Bonds and other professional athletes," the indictment, filed late on Tuesday, alleged.
"Barry Lamar Bonds did corruptly influence, obstruct and impede ... the due administration of justice, by knowingly giving grand jury testimony that was intentionally evasive, false, and misleading."
Bonds has long maintained he never knowingly used steroids, but his reputation has suffered badly amid the allegations against him. No team has signed him for the current baseball season despite the 43-year-old's expressed desire to play.
In 2007, Bonds passed Hank Aaron, the former career Major League home run king, and finished the season seven homers ahead at 762.
Bonds' lawyers scored a big procedural victory in February when a federal judge ruled the government had made overly broad arguments in its four perjury counts and one obstruction of justice count by including two or more offenses in a single count.
The government had to start from scratch and has now brought a longer array of individual charges.
Despite one of the greatest careers in baseball history, Bonds' behavior off the field, including episodes of arrogance and rudeness, has kept him from winning over many fans.
Many openly wondered whether steroids fueled his surge of home runs for the San Francisco Giants late in his career at an age that many players slow down.
The updated indictment alleges Bonds lied in saying he never took steroids or other performance enhancing drugs and that to his knowledge his personal trainer Greg Anderson never gave him steroids, a syringe, human growth hormone or testosterone.
"Barry Bonds is innocent," defense attorney Ruby said. "He was innocent of the charges in the dismissed indictment and he's innocent of the charges in the superseding indictment, and any talk of consequences is really a moot point."
(Editing by Todd Eastham)
