- Barry Bonds/facebook
By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
Home run slugger Barry Bonds just keeps knocking them out of the park in the legal arena.
On Friday, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a federal judge’s ruling that bars three steroid tests from being introduced into his perjury case, a ruling that will weaken the federal government’s case, the San Franciso Chronicle reported. And it could potentially spell the end to the case for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco.
Bonds, 45, had told a federal grand jury in 2003 he had never knowingly taken performance enhancing drugs. He was indicted in 2008 for perjury and obstruction of justice.
The court, in a 2-1 ruling, barred the evidence because Bond’s trainer Greg Anderson, who had arranged the tests, refused to testify against Bonds, resulting in no valid evidence that Bond was the source of samples for the tests, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote.
The prosecution had delayed the case pending the ruling on the evidence.
Dennis Riordan, a lawyer for Bonds, told the Chronicle that the delay in trial was a concession by the prosecution that it “could not proceed against Mr. Bonds in a jury trial without the evidence that’s now been excluded.”
“We hope that this puts the entire prosecution to rest,” Riordan said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office does have other evidence in the case, the Chronicle reported. It said the office declined comment on the ruling.
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