A federal jury convicted Barry Bonds of a single charge of obstruction of justice Wednesday but failed to reach a verdict on the three counts at the heart of allegations that he knowingly used steroids and human growth hormone and lied to a grand jury about it.
Following a 12-day trial and almost four full days of deliberation, the jury of eight women and four men could reach a unanimous verdict only on one of the four counts against Bonds. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston declared a mistrial on the others, a messy end to a case that put the slugger ?and baseball itself ? under a cloud of suspicion for more than three years.
Bonds sat stone-faced through the verdict, displaying no emotion. His legal team immediately asked that the guilty verdict be thrown out and Illston did not rule on the request. She set May 20 for a hearing in the case.
The case also represented the culmination of the federal investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative steroids ring. Federal prosecutors and the Justice Department will have to decide whether to retry Bonds on the unresolved counts.
The counts that the jury could not resolve accused of Bonds of lying to the grand jury investigating BALCO in 2003 when he said he never knowingly took steroids or HGH, and when he said he was never injected by anyone except his doctors.
The maximum sentence for the obstruction of justice count is 10 years in prison, but federal guidelines called for 15-21 months. For similar offenses in the BALCO case, Illston sentenced cyclist Tammy Thomas to six months of home confinement and track coach Trevor Graham to one year of home confinement.
Bonds walked out of the courthouse with his lawyers, who instructed him not to comment because they said the case isn’t over.
Bonds flashed a victory sign to a few fans.
“Are you celebrating tonight?” one asked.
“There’s nothing to celebrate,” he replied.
Lead defense attorney Allen Ruby said the prosecution failed to prove the heart of its case.
The obstruction of justice count was a complicated charge that asked jurors to decide if Bonds was being evasive when making any one of seven statements to the grand jury. He was convicted on a single statement about his childhood as the son of major leaguer Bobby Bonds and his relationship with personal trainer Greg Anderson ? it did not address performance-enhancing drugs.
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