Evidence against Barry Bonds

It is getting harder to defend Barry Bonds, now that the feds have disclosed their evidence:

(02-04) 17:57 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- Former Giants slugger Barry Bonds used the BALCO designer steroid "the clear" during the 2003 baseball season and at the same time was taking a female fertility drug that can help beat steroid tests, federal prosecutors say.

Bonds' trainer, Greg Anderson, was secretly tape-recorded that same year describing the regimen of undetectable banned drugs that baseball's all-time home run leader was using, the prosecutors said in documents made public Wednesday.

I still don't see a smoking gun. Bonds tested negative for steroids in 2003, and the sample was supposed to have been destroyed. The feds raided the MLB samples, and claim to have found Bonds' sample, even tho it does not have Bonds' name on it. They retested it, and found THG. But Bonds had admitted that he used what Balco called the Clear, and what is now known to have contained THG.

The tape-recording was almost certainly illegal, and inadmissable as evidence. It is also hearsay, unless Anderson testifies, and it appears that he will not. Even if the tape is admitted, it is only evidence about what Anderson knew, not what Bonds knew.

Everyone in the SF Calif area predicts that Bonds is going to prison. All the local reporters say the case against Bonds is a slam dunk. I am not so sure.

I do know that Bonds was subpoenaed to testify to a grand jury about whether Balco was selling drugs without FDA approval. Bonds was promised immunity and secrecy for his testimony. The promise was not kept, as his testimony was leaked to local reporters who hated him and wrote nasty articles and books about him. Maybe Bonds lied to preserve his public reputation, but he did not impede the Balco investigation. Balco was shut down. The principals went to jail. The feds got what they wanted. Maybe Bonds realized that the feds were not going to keep their secrecy promises. It seems to me that the feds just didn't like Bonds breaking home run records, and they spent five years trying to figure out a way to break him.