Local News

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / AP) ― A former San Francisco Giants trainer testified before the federal grand jury investigating steroid use in sports, a sign the probe of star slugger Barry Bonds was not derailed by the firing of the investigation's top prosecutor.

Mark Letendre, 50, told The Associated Press Tuesday that he testified for about an hour on Feb. 14. He was asked about Bonds' size and confirmed the slugger hurt his elbow in 1999.

"It was all pretty vanilla," Letendre said. "I'm pretty far removed from it."

Bonds' former girlfriend Kimberly Bell told an earlier grand jury that Bonds blamed the 1999 elbow injury on steroid use.

Bonds missed seven weeks that season after undergoing surgery to remove a bone spur and repair a damaged tendon in his left arm.

Letendre, of Scottsdale, Ariz., served as the team's head trainer through the 1999 season, when he was named director of Major League Baseball's Umpire Medical Services.

Since U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan was fired in December, speculation has mounted that the Department of Justice would quietly extinguish the long-running investigation into whether Bonds lied under oath when he said he didn't knowingly take performance enhancing drugs.

"There is absolutely no doubt that the U.S. attorney is still running a grand jury and still taking evidence that involves Bonds," said Michael Rains, the lawyer for Bonds. "There is still an active effort to indict Barry."

The slugger's supporters maintain the investigation is little more than an expensive, high-profile smear campaign of an unpopular baseball player approaching a hallowed Major League Baseball record.

With 735 home runs, Bonds is 20 shy of Hank Aaron's all-time record.

Letendre's testimony came the day before Ryan's last day on the job, but a temporary successor had already been named.

Ryan was among the eight federal prosecutors at the center of a Washington tempest over their December firings. He was replaced Feb. 15 by career prosecutor Scott Schools.

Schools declined to comment Tuesday on Letendre's remarks or whether the grand jury probe was continuing, a spokeswoman said.

Stan Conte, Letendre's successor as the Giants' head trainer and Bond's surgeon, Arthur Ting have also testified before a grand jury. And Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, remains jailed for refusing to testify.

The grand jury is investigating whether Bonds committed perjury when he testified that he used a clear substance and a cream the he believed was flaxseed oil and arthritis balm. Anderson gave him the drugs, which were later identified as a designer steroid.

Anderson spent three months in prison after pleading guilty to money laundering and steroids distribution in connection with the federal investigation of an illegal steroid ring centered at the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, better known as BALCO. Anderson was ordered back to prison in August until he agrees to testify in the perjury probe.

BALCO's founder, Victor Conte, also pleaded guilty and served four months.

In all, federal prosecutors have indicted seven people and won five convictions in the steroids investigation. Champion cyclist Tammy Thomas and track coach Trevor Graham have each pleaded not guilty to charges of perjury and misleading investigators.

Attorney Troy Ellerman, who represented two BALCO figures, pleaded guilty Feb. 15 to leaking confidential grand jury testimony of Bonds and others to the San Francisco Chronicle. Ellerman faces up to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced in June.

(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)