Legal News

On Opening Day, Feds Again Unable to Solve Greg Anderson

By Ashby Jones

The perjury trial of Barry Bonds kicked off in earnest on Tuesday. The early takeaway: while the government got the first chance to fill the jurors’ ears, the first part of the day belonged to the defense.

Why? Mainly because Bonds’s former trainer, Greg Anderson, again told U.S. District Judge Susan Illston that he would not testify against Bonds.

“He clearly, and unequivocally, will not testify,” Anderson’s lawyer, Mark Geragos, said. Shortly thereafter, Illston found Anderson in contempt of court and ordered him jailed once again — this time for the duration of the case. It will be Anderson’s fifth stint in jail for failing to cooperate with prosecutors in the Bonds case. Click here for the USA Today story on the Anderson situation.

“Perhaps the government hoped Anderson would give it a (ninth-inning) ninth walk-off home run in game one,” says Joshua Berman, a former federal prosecutor now at Katten Muchin in D.C. “But it is Bonds and his team that have won and set the tone that this series may go the distance.”

In his opening argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Parella said it was “ridiculous and unbelievable” that Bonds thought he was taking flax seed oil and arthritis cream when his trainer gave him steroids. Click here for the AP story.

But Parrella said Bonds lied to the grand jury, even though the government promised not to prosecute him for drug use if he testified truthfully.

“All he had to do was tell the truth,” Parrella said. “That’s all, but he couldn’t do it.”

In his opening statement, Allen Ruby, Bonds’ lead attorney, acknowledged that Bonds did take two designer steroids called the “cream” and the “clear.” But Bonds did so unwittingly, Ruby said.

“Barry answered every question,” the attorney said. “He told the truth. He did his best.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 22, 2011 (boomark / email).