Bonds Indicted

Bonds Indicted November 15, 2007 | 10:38 PM Barry Bonds was indicted today on counts of perjury and obstructing justice by a Federal Grand jury. Shortly after the indictment, Bonds' personal trainer was let out of jail, where he'd spent much of the past year for refusing to testify against Bonds. There's a lot of unanswered questions here and clearly this will take a few days to fully break and play out, but of course there's lots of info out there already. I'll admit I've always been a Bonds hater, so this comes as no surprise and it makes me very, very happy. But I haven't been able to read up on this too much, so I'm going to keep my happy,happy,joy,joy glee dance under wraps til we know more information. From Gene Wojciechowski of ESPN.com: It's safe to say that the government wouldn't have waited this long to indict Bonds unless it was certain it had enough for a conviction or a plea bargain. That doesn't guarantee the feds will get either one, but generally speaking, you don't go after the game's home run leader and his considerable legal team without a certain degree of confidence... Bonds perpetrated a fraud. Government prosecutors don't necessarily care that he perpetrated that fraud against Major League Baseball and its customers. They care that he didn't (allegedly) tell the truth to a grand jury. The rest is icing on Bud Selig's cake. This is a sort of step-by-step breakdown of what has happened and includes this interesting bit of info: Are there any surprises in the indictment? Most of the material in the indictment is familiar to anyone who has followed the BALCO investigation, but there is one surprise. The surprise is that, according to the indictment, during the criminal investigation evidence was obtained, including positive tests for steroids and other performance-enhancing substances for Bonds and other professional athletes. When asked about it in front of the grand jury, Bonds denied a positive test. It will be one of the most difficult charges for Bonds to deny. He will be scientifically connected to a positive test with DNA and other techniques. This is SI.com's step-by-step breakdown Here's the AP news story on the indictment Nicole