After nearly four days of deliberation and two weeks of Barry Bonds’ perjury trial, the jury found the slugger guilty of obstruction of justice but was unable to yield a verdict on three other charges. Though Bonds is not off yet — there’s a hearing set for May — he should be thanking his lawyers, our jurors, and trainer Greg Anderson for helping his case.
Bonds was being tried for four offenses all saying he lied to the grand jury. Three counts were related to Bonds lying about being injected (one count each for steroids, HGH, and being injected period), and the fourth count was obstruction of justice. The jury found Bonds guilty of obstruction of justice but nearly acquitted him on the other three charges.
The jurors convicted Bonds for refusing to answer the question directly when asked if his trainer, Greg Anderson, ever gave him anything to inject. Bonds answered with a response about being the child of a celebrity. They felt since he didn’t answer that question directly that he was obstructing justice. The problem is they didn’t feel they had enough evidence to confirm he was injected. They discredited the testimony of Bonds’ personal shopper who says she saw Bonds get injected by Anderson, and they discredited his former girlfriend’s words that he talked about using steroids.
