By Matt Ezepek
The closing statements for Barry Bonds’s perjury trial were on Thursday, April 8. The trial, which began in March, is now over, and the jury is in deliberation. Bonds has been accused of lying to a grand jury about steroid use in 2003. Bonds was called for questioning about illegal steroid use in baseball. Bonds now faces up to ten years in prison if found guilty.
Bonds claimed that he never knowingly used steroids and was never injected by his trainer Greg Anderson. Anderson is known for supplying steroids to multiple Major League Baseball players and is currently serving jail time for refusing to testify in this trial.






The prosecution used many witnesses to try and prove that Bonds used steroids, and lots of them. Bonds admits to twice using a steroid cream that Anderson gave to him. Bonds’s longtime mistress testified against him that he had back acne, a growing head, shrinking testicles and impotence, all side effects of steroid abuse. Jeremy and Jason Giambi testified that they received steroid injections from Anderson. Bonds’s assistant claims to have seen Bonds receive an injection. This is a key statement because this is the only eye-witness account of Bonds using steroids that they have. The prosecution is relying on a lot of circumstantial evidence.
Bonds’s defense says that all the prosecution’s witnesses were all ex-lovers or ex-friends who feel betrayed by Bonds and are looking for revenge. Also, they feel that the government is targeting Bonds because he didn’t help in their investigation back in 2003. The defense looked to destroy credibility of the witnesses and the case overall. The defense also claimed that even if Bonds lied to the grand jury in 2003, it’s still not enough to get a conviction for perjury. They claim that nothing Bonds said negatively impacted the grand jury and their investigation. Had it been a lie, it was irrelevant anyway.
We should know the jury’s decision by early next week.
Photo Credit: Kevin Rush