Nov 19, 2007 6:17 pm US/Pacific
Bonds' Perjury Charge May Be Hard To Prove
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ―
Home run king Barry Bonds is the latest in a string of high-profile defendants to face perjury and obstruction charges crimes that often are difficult to prosecute and result in little, if any, prison time.
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, was sentenced to 2 1/2 years for lying to a grand jury, and Martha Stewart spent five months in prison and five months of home confinement for her obstruction of justice conviction.
The former San Francisco Giants slugger faces a maximum of five years on each of his four perjury charges and 10 years for one obstruction charge for allegedly lying about his steroid use during a 2003 appearance before a grand jury. But defense attorneys and former prosecutors who have handled perjury cases said Bonds likely would serve only about a year in prison if a jury convicts him.
"If he's convicted, he will go to prison," said Steve Chapman, the lawyer who represented basketball star Chris Webber when he was charged with lying to a federal grand jury in 2002.
Webber was charged with lying about accepting money from a booster while playing basketball at the University of Michigan. Webber pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and paid a fine but did no jail time.
Chapman said judges almost always follow federal sentencing guidelines, a table of suggested prison terms that take past criminal behavior and other factors into account. Since Bonds has had no previous trouble with the law, Chapman said Bonds likely would be sentenced to about a year.
Chapman and other lawyers said Bonds could negotiate an even less severe sentence if he agrees to plead guilty rather than force the government to go through the time and expense of a trial. Chapman also said Bonds and his legal team also appear to face another hurdle because of the slugger's notoriously prickly personality, which could work against him in front of a jury.
"Chris Webber was a really nice guy, and that worked to his benefit," Chapman said.
Bonds was charged Thursday for allegedly lying when in his testimony before a grand jury investigating a performance-enhancing drug ring centered at the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO.
Two other athletes and a track coach also have been indicted for allegedly lying to the same grand jury investigating BALCO.
Marion Jones, a three-time Olympic gold medalist, pleaded guilty in October and faces a maximum of six months in prison when she is sentenced in January.
Track coach Trevor Graham and former Olympic bicyclist Tammy Thomas also have been charged with perjury and both have pleaded not guilty.
Even though Bonds faces a relatively modest prison sentence, criminal law experts still say a conviction is far from certain. For starters, to win a perjury case, prosecutors have to show that the lie materially affected the outcome of an investigation.
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston, who is expected to be assigned the Bonds case because she has handled the other BALCO-related cases said during a recent hearing that high standard protects harmless fabrications, such as a woman lying under oath about her age, from prosecution.
Bonds' attorney Michael Rains said he will aggressively attack the credibility of the government's witnesses, including Bonds' former mistress Kimberly Bell. Bell testified to a grand jury in 22005 that Bonds told her he began using steroids after Mark McGwire set the single season home run mark that Bonds shattered in 2001.
Rains has previously said that Bell is a scorned lover who believes Bonds owes her money, which means she has motivation to lie about what Bonds said about steroids.
Rains didn't return a telephone call Monday. But in an outgoing message on his voicemail, the Pleasant Hill attorney denied an ESPN report that Bonds was planning to turn himself in Monday for fingerprinting and to have his mug shot taken. That process is expected to occur after Bonds makes his first appearance in federal court on Dec. 7.
According the Administrative Office of the Courts, perjury charges are among the rarest of criminal cases prosecuted in federal court and among the toughest to win a conviction.
The number of people charged with perjury has dropped from 142 in 2002 to just 62 last year, according the AOC. Some 87,238 people were charged with a crime in federal court last year.
Perjury cases had a conviction rate of 86 percent last year, compared to a 90 percent conviction rate for all crimes charged. Obstruction of justice charges fared even worse, netting a 79 percent conviction rate last year.
"They are tough cases to prosecute because very often it turn into he said, she said," said defense attorney Brad Simon.
The U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco declined comment Monday.
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