Baseball stars would be likely witnesses in a Bonds perjury trial

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Baseball stars Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield are likely to be called as prosecution witnessers if the bearing false witness lawsuit against place tally male monarch Barry Bonds return to trial, respective lawyers familiar with the lawsuit say.

Former Giants catcher Benito Santiago De Los Caballeros and other retired participants with admitted neckties to the BALCO steroids dirt also could be sought as authorities witnessers unless Bonds' federal bill of indictment is settled with a supplication deal before trial, said the lawyers. Most asked not to be quoted by name concerning a pending case.

In 2003, Giambi, the New House Of York Yankees slugger, and Sheffield, now a designated batter for the Motor City Tigers, told a expansive jury that was investigating the Bay Area Lab Co-Operative that they had obtained "the cream" and "the clear" - undetectable interior designer steroids, according to the authorities - from Greg Anderson, Bonds' personal trainer, The History have reported.

Santiago, Bonds' teammate when the Giants played in the 2002 World Series, told the BALCO expansive jury that he had received human growing internal secretion and the injectable steroid Winstrol from Anderson, the newspaper have reported.

To turn out to a jury that Bonds lied under curse when he denied using banned drugs, federal public prosecutors are likely to turn to baseball game participants who have got admitted their ain engagement in BALCO to attest about the former Giants star, his trainer and steroids, lawyers said.

The participants could be asked to discourse doping calendars, payment listings and a treasure trove of other records seized by the authorities in forays on BALCO and on the place of Bonds' trainer in 2003, lawyers said. The authorities believes that the written documents were written by Sherwood Sherwood Anderson to track Bonds' drug usage and that Anderson kept similar charts for other steroid clients.

"I anticipate everybody will acquire subpoena ad testificandums to demo up and be asked inquiries about the calendars," one lawyer said.

Bonds, indicted last calendar month on four counts of bearing false witness and one count of obstructor of justice, have his first tribunal visual aspect Friday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

Peter Keane, a Golden Gate University law professor who have been following the BALCO case, said the players' testimony might go important.

"They very well could be authorities witnesses," he said. "One thing the prosecution would desire to demo by circumstantial or direct grounds is that with BALCO and Anderson, their regular wont with baseball game participants was to give them steroids and human growing hormone."

The defence might struggle to barricade the players' testimony, but their grounds "would be highly relevant," Keane said.

Paula Canny, lawyer for Sheffield, said via e-mail that she could not theorize about what witnessers the authorities might name at trial.

David Cornwell, Santiago's lawyer, said he didn't expect his client would be subpoenaed. "My belief is his engagement in the BALCO substance ended a long clip ago," Cornwell said. Giambi's agent, Arn Tellem, didn't react to a petition for comment.

Bonds, who broke baseball's calling place tally record in August, was indicted Nov. 15. He is accused of lying under curse when he told the BALCO expansive jury in 2003 that he had not knowingly used steroids and human growing internal secretion obtained from Anderson.

His lawyer, Michael Rains, have said Bonds is guiltless of the complaints and anticipates to be exonerated at a jury trial. Rains wasn't available to notice for this story.

Bonds was one of more than than 30 elite jocks subpoenaed to attest in the federal investigation of BALCO, a Burlingame nutritionary research lab that the authorities states distributed interior designer steroids to stars of baseball, the NFL and Olympic path and field.

After Anderson, BALCO laminitis Victor Conte and three other work force pleaded guilty in the drug lawsuit in 2005, the authorities focused on jocks whom it suspected of lying to hinder the BALCO probe.

In October, Olympic dash title-holder Marion Mother Jones pleaded guilty to lying to federal research workers when she told them she had never used BALCO drugs. She hasn't yet been sentenced. Besides Bonds, two other jocks are awaiting trial in San Francisco on similar charges: Trevor Graham, Jones' former coach, accused of lying to a federal agent; and Tammy Thomas, Olympic bike racer, accused of bearing false witness before the BALCO expansive jury.

Some legal experts foretell Bonds' lawsuit will stop like Jones', with a supplication bargain. They observe that if convicted of all the complaints at a trial, Bonds could confront a sentence of perhaps 30 calendar months in prison, according to federal sentencing guidelines, while a supplication deal could transport a far lighter penalty. Conte, the BALCO mastermind, served four calendar months in prison, they note.

But lawyers familiar with the lawsuit state they believe that Bonds, a free agent who have said he trusts to subscribe with another squad for 2008, is adamantine about fighting the complaints and that his lawyer, Rains, is optimistic about winning an acquittal at trial.

Perjury lawsuits are considered hard to prosecute: The lucidity of a prosecutor's inquiries and the precise diction of responses can go polar issues. Rains also trusts the defence will acquire grip by elaborating on his claim that the authorities unfairly targeted Bonds and engaged in misconduct during the BALCO probe. Rains states he outlined those allegations in letters to Acting U.S. Lawyer George C. Scott Schools earlier this year.

Thus, so far at least, the phase is put for a trial, probably adjacent year. Meanwhile, Bonds trusts to add veteran soldier criminal defence specializer Toilet Keker to his legal team, a beginning said. It was ill-defined how that mightiness alteration the dynamic. Besides Bonds, six baseball game participants were subpoenaed before the BALCO expansive jury - Giambi, Sheffield and Santiago, along with former Giants Armando Rios and Bobby Estalella and Giambi's blood brother Jeremy, a former Oakland Athletic.

All but Sheffield and Jason Giambi are retired from the game.

The participants said they met Sherwood Anderson through Bonds and obtained banned drugs from the trainer. They said Sherwood Anderson kept doping calendars for them - written documents thought to be like the suspected Bonds calendars seized in the BALCO raid.

Although their testimony might assist the prosecution, the participants also present jobs as authorities witnesses, lawyers said. Because the focusing of the expansive jury investigation was the suspected steroid dealers, the participants were not questioned closely about Bonds. The participants said that even though they were getting drugs from Bonds' trainer, they didn't cognize for certain that Sherwood Anderson was supplying them to Bonds as well, The History have reported.

Jason Giambi told the expansive jury that Sherwood Anderson gave him "the cream," "the clear," injectable testosterone and Clomid, a female birthrate drug sometimes used to mask steroid use.

"I assumed because he's Barry's trainer" that Bonds was using the same items, Giambi said. "But (Anderson) never said one time, 'This is what Barry's taking, this is what Barry's doing.' "

Sheffield, then a free agent who had just signed with the Yankees, said that he got "the cream" and "the clear" from Sherwood Anderson and that Bonds used it too. But Sheffield also said he wasn't aware until later that the matters were steroids - an business relationship similar to the testimony of Bonds, who said he thought Sherwood Anderson was giving him flaxseed oil and arthritis balm.

As a result, "the authorities is going to be nervous" about using the participants as witnesses, one lawyer said. "The authorities is going to desire 'We cognize Barry was using steroids.' But they don't specifically cognize what they'll say."

In 2006, authorities agents sought to interview Giambi and Sheffield about Bonds, according to a beginning familiar with the case. Sheffield referred the question to his lawyer, while Giambi said he knew small more than than what he had said at the expansive jury, the beginning said.

In improver to the players, lawyers said the witnesser listing for Bonds' bearing false witness trial would likely include U.S. Internal Revenue Service agent Jeff Novitzky, the Pb BALCO investigator, and experts on the scientific discipline and sensing of banned drugs.

The authorities states that in the BALCO raid, it seized laboratory studies showing that Bonds had tested positive for steroids. Experts will be needed to construe the written documents for the jury.

"Positive diagnostic tests - they necessitate person to state what they mean," said a lawyer.

Conte, Sherwood Anderson and the other BALCO suspects might also be subpoenaed, some lawyers said.

"It is quite possible that any or all of them could be witnesses" at Bonds' trial, said Virgin Mary McNamara, Conte's lawyer.

Conte have never testified about BALCO. In telecasting interviews, he have admitted giving banned drugs to Mother Jones and other Olympic stars while denying providing drugs to Bonds.

Anderson refused to attest for the authorities in the Bonds investigation, disbursement more than a twelvemonth in prison house on a disdain commendation instead. Still, the authorities could seek to coerce him to attest in a Bonds trial and mention him for disdain again if he refused. His lawyer, Mark Geragos, said he couldn't theorize about the issue.

"It is difficult for me to believe that one side or the other won't name Victor or Greg," a lawyer said.

The function of another prospective witnesser - Kimberly Bell, Bonds' former girlfriend - is uncertain. Bell told the expansive jury that in 2000 Bonds had confided to her that he was using steroids. She also said Bonds had given her $80,000 hard cash in unreported income - money she said he got from merchandising autographed baseball games - to purchase a house in Arizona.

But the authorities didn't prosecute a taxation lawsuit against Bonds, and Bell's cognition of Bonds and drugs come ups from a single conversation. For his part, Rains have accused Bell of trying to extort money from Bonds and vowed to "demolish" her if she took the base at trial. Her visual aspect in a photograph spreading in November's Playboy magazine might also be a subject on cross-examination, lawyers said.

"They necessitate more than than the girlfriend," said a beginning familiar with the government's case. Gary Sheffield

"I asked Barry, you know, about this cat (personal trainer) Greg Anderson. And he goes, you know, 'Don't inquire any questions. Just trust me.'... Nothing was between me and Greg. Barry pretty much controlled everything."