SAN FRANCISCO -- The jury in the Barry Bonds convicted the seven-time MVP guilty of obstruction of justice, but the defense and prosecution agreed to a mistrial on the other three remaining counts. The judge, after speaking to the jury foreman, said she believes the mistrial is the proper decision given that the jury believes it has reached a crossroads. The jury is being brought back into the courtroom to read the verdict on the one count on which it agreed. The eight women and four men are returning the verdict after four days of deliberations. The jury has worked behind closed doors since rehearing some testimony early Monday. Bonds is charged with three counts of lying to a grand jury in 2003 and one count of obstruction. Prosecutors allege that Bonds lied when he denied knowingly taking steroids and human growth hormone. A third count of making a false statement charges that Bonds lied when he said no one other than his doctor ever injected him with anything. The fourth count is obstruction of justice, which alleges that MLB's all-time home runs leader hindered the grand jury's sports doping investigation by lying. Bonds' case is the culmination of a federal investigation that began in 2002 into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, which distributed performance-enhancing drugs to athletes. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6347014
Wow, I just googled that and other celebrities got the following: Martha Stewart got 5 months for lying about insider trading Lil Kim got a little over a year for lying about a club shooting Scooter Libby got 2.5 years for lying about a CIA leak. (commuted by Bush)
so basically the jury couldn't agree whether he was lying or not, but they were pretty sure he wasn't telling the truth? please. make. it. end.
Its actually a max of 10 years for each count if I remember correctly from the pretrial motions. But the usual sentence is 10-11 months in prison. I got to sit in on most of the trial and it was a very interesting trial. Real embarrassing moments for Bonds. Especially when the mistress testified. The courtroom actually broke out in laughter at times and the judge had to tell the audience to be quiet. Just heard the jurors speak to media and here was their votes: Count 1 and 3: 8 not guilty and 4 guilty Count 2: 11 guilty and 1 not guilty Count 4: 12 guilty I will post a picture when I get home.
I believe count 2 was the actual accusation that he illegally used steroids/HGH and it goes 11-1 of all things. Either way huge waste of money and I hope that they dont bother re-trying him on the other 4 counts. We've got better things to prosecute.
I don't understand why athletes can't take steroids.... Isn't it for athletes to perform at their absolute best??
From a farce of an investigation to a farce of a trial to a farce of a verdict. At least it only cost $50MM of taxpayer money. God bless America.
I'm watching the Nightline piece about Barry Bonds right now and one of the commentators is saying this is a victory not for fair play but for keeping kids from harming their bodies by doing steroids. I don't fully buy that but just pointing out that view.
