Feds drop case against Bonds

SAN FRANCISCO The U.S. Department of Justice will not appeal a court ruling that cleared baseball player Barry Bonds of obstruction of justice in a probe over steroids, effectively ending the long criminal prosecution of the sport’s career home run leader. He was indicted in 2007 and a jury convicted him in 2011 for his response to the question of whether trainer Greg Anderson provided him with “anything that required a syringe to inject yourself with”.

The decade-long investigation and prosecution of Bonds for obstruction of justice ended quietly with the DOJ’s one-paragraph court filing announcing it would not ask the U.S. Supreme Court to consider a lower court’s reversal of his felony conviction.

In addition to going all the way to the Supreme Court, the DOJ could have also asked the 11-judge panel to reconsider the April decision to overturn the conviction, or they could have asked all 29 judges on the 9th Circuit to rehear the case. I became a celebrity child with a famous father. The government dismissed those counts in August 2011, and the 9th Circuit barred a retrial on the obstruction charge, citing double jeopardy. This office procured the indictment of Bonds in 2007 and charged him with lying to a federal grand jury in regards to using performance-enhancing drug use. However, Bonds’ legal victory likely will not remove the tarnish attached to his on-the-field accomplishments.

Major League Baseball had no immediate comment. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded there was insufficient evidence to back up the charge that his rambling testimony in December 2003 interfered with a federal grand jury probing the BALCO steroids scandal. “I just don’t get into other people’s business because of my father’s situation, you see”. The court said the answer wasn’t “material” to the sprawling federal investigation into sports doping centered in the San Francisco Bay Area. He served the home confinement portion while waiting for his appeal to be decided.

Despite that, he has not come close to being elected into the Hall of Fame due to his PED ties.

Bonds hit 762 home runs and maintained a stellar 1.051 OPS across parts of 22 seasons in the Majors.