From the San Francisco Chronicle’s Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada.
Greg Anderson, the Peninsula steroid dealer who was Barry Bonds’ personal weight trainer, refused to testify Thursday before a federal grand jury investigating the baseball star for perjury.
A judge said he would rule next week on whether Anderson should found in contempt of court for refusing to testify against his childhood friend, thus facing a possible return to prison.
Anderson’s attorney Mark Geragos argued that the personal trainer should not have to testify because he was the victim of an illegal government wiretap that he said resulted in a recording of Anderson saying he provided Bonds with “undetectable” drugs to help him beat baseball’s steroid testing program in 2003.
The recording was first revealed in an Oct. 2004 Chronicle story after a copy was provided to the newspaper by a confidential news source.
At an unusual hearing in U.S. District Court in San Francisco Thursday, prosecutors revealed they have obtained that recording. Federal Judge William Alsup, who closed the hearing to the public on three separate occasions, ruled that the recording was “not a wiretap, but a privately recorded conversation with a witness.”
Writes Tim Cook, “I wish SUNN O)))’s Greg Anderson (left) could one day tell his side of the story.”
Indeed, but probably not as much as Sunn O)))’s Anderson would prefer to be mentioned in another context. Still, I wasn’t gonna turn down the photo.