Baseball slugger Barry Bonds won’t be headed to court Monday after all.
Bonds’ federal trial on perjury and obstruction charges was to begin with jury selection Monday. But on Friday, prosecutors in the case filed an appeal of a court ruling about evidence admissibility, and the proceedings were stayed until further notice, the court said. Bonds has been charged with lying to a federal grand jury investigating the use of steroids in professional sports when he told the jurors he’d never used performance-enhancing substances. Bonds denies lying to the grand jury and maintains he has never taken steroids. Bonds, 44, holds Major League Baseball’s single-season and all-time home-run titles, but his achievements have been overshadowed by allegations that he used steroids.
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In his 2003 testimony, he told the grand jury that his former personal trainer, Greg Anderson, gave him a cream that he said was flaxseed oil to use on his arm. Anderson spent three months in prison after admitting distributing steroids and was later jailed for refusing to cooperate with prosecutors.
Prosecutors say their case will include a recording of a phone conversation between Anderson and an associate, in which Anderson describes injecting Bonds with performance-enhancing drugs and boasting of the “undetectable nature” of the substances. Bonds won seven National League MVP titles during his 22-year career, 15 years of which were spent with the San Francisco Giants. The team released him after the 2007 season, just weeks after he broke Hank Aaron’s career home-run record.
