Baseball superstar Barry Bonds was charged Thursday with perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying when he said he did not use performance-enhancing drugs.
The indictment, unsealed Thursday by federal prosecutors in San Francisco, is the culmination of a four-year federal probe into whether he lied under oath to a grand jury investigating steroid use by elite athletes.
"It is a surprise," said NPR's Tom Goldman, who has been following the case. "The grand jury term had expired at least once, and Greg Anderson (Bonds' longtime trainer) has been languishing in jail while refusing to testify against Bonds."
Goldman noted that Bonds' legal team has long challenged prosecutors to make their case.
"They said: 'If you have evidence, bring it on and indict us,'" Goldman said. "And the grand jury did."
The indictment comes three months after the 43-year-old Bonds, one of the biggest names in professional sports, passed Hank Aaron to become baseball's career home-run leader, his sport's most hallowed record. Bonds, who parted ways with the San Francisco Giants at the end of last season and has yet to sign with another team, also holds the game's single-season home run record of 73.
While Bonds was chasing Aaron amid the adulation of San Franciscans and the scorn of baseball fans almost everywhere else, due to his notoriously prickly personality and nagging steroid allegations, a grand jury quietly worked behind closed doors to put the finishing touches on the long-rumored indictment.
"I'm surprised," said John Burris, one of Bonds' attorneys. "I'm curious what evidence they have now they didn't have before."
The indictment charges Bonds with lying when he said that he didn't knowingly take steroids given to him by Anderson.
He also denied taking steroids at any time in 2001 when he was pursuing the single season home-run record.
"During the criminal investigation, evidence was obtained including positive tests for the presence of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances for Bonds and other athletes," the indictment reads.
He is also charged with lying that Anderson never injected him with steroids.
"Greg wouldn't do that," Bonds testified in December 2003 when asked if Anderson ever gave him any drugs that needed to be injected. "He knows I'm against that stuff."
A long-awaited report by former Sen. George Mitchell on steroid use in baseball is due at the end of the year, NPR's Goldman said, adding that the report is expected to name several high-profile players as steroid users.
From Associated Press and NPR reports
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