Sports

Bonds Case On Hold While Feds Seek New Indictment

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ― The perjury case against Barry Bonds was put on hold for three months while prosecutors said Friday they still plan to obtain a new indictment against Major League Baseball's home run king.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston had earlier ordered prosecutors to fix their original indictment because it lumped too many of the slugger's alleged lies to a grand jury in to too few charges. Illston said that prosecutors needed to either drop some of the allegations from the indictment or add more charges.
 
Bonds, 43, was charged in the original indictment with four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice in his testimony on Dec. 4, 2003, before a grand jury investigating a sports steroids distribution scheme operating out of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

The former San Francisco Giants slugger is accused of lying when he allegedly told the panel he never knowingly received anabolic steroids or human growth hormone and never received injections from his trainer, Greg Anderson.

On Friday, at a brief court hearing, assistant U.S. attorney Matt Parrella didn't say when the government would ask a grand jury for a new indictment.

Illston ordered both sides to return to court June 6, making it likely that the start of a trial—if it goes that far—will be pushed into next year.

Bonds is an unsigned free agent, but has said he wants to play this year.

"I'm not going to retire. I don't think that's going to happen," he told MLB.com earlier this week. "I'm working out. I'm training. If my phone rings, it rings. If it don't, it don't. I have a cell phone. I have a Blackberry. They work. If something comes up, I'm sure they'll let me know. I'll come back in July if I have to. It depends on the circumstances."

Bonds, who played for the Giants from 1993 to 2007 and set the Major League Baseball record for home runs last year, was not in the courtroom Friday.

Outside of court, defense attorney Allen Ruby said, "Barry Bonds is innocent."

Ruby said the first indictment "is going nowhere," but he and defense lawyer Cristina Arguedas declined to speculate on prosecution procedures for obtaining a new grand jury indictment or how long it might take.

In a similar situation in another BALCO-related case, the false statements prosecution of cyclist Tammy Thomas, prosecutors obtained a new indictment relatively quickly.

Thomas is accused of making false statements in grand jury testimony on Nov. 6, 2003, when she denied receiving performance-enhancing drugs from chemist Patrick Arnold. She was originally indicted in 2006 on charges of three false statements as well as obstruction of justice.

In a decision similar to her order in the Bonds case, Illston ruled March 3 that two of the counts were defective because they each referred to more than one alleged lie. Prosecutors obtained a new grand jury indictment March 18 and resolved the problem by dividing the false statements charges into a total of five counts instead of three.

Thomas is scheduled to go on trial in Illston's court Monday. If the case is not resolved by a last-minute plea agreement, it will be the first BALCO-related case to go to trial.

Eight other people, including Arnold, Anderson, BALCO founder Victor Conte and track star Marion Jones, have pleaded guilty to charges of steroid distribution, money laundering or lying during the investigation.

In addition to Thomas and Bonds, track coach Trevor Graham is awaiting trial. Graham is due to go before a jury in Illston's court in May on charges of making false statements to investigators in 2004.

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