The New York Times’ Michael B. Schmidt is reporting federal prosecutors getting ready for the Sultan Of Surly’s perjury trial believe they’re sitting on damning evidence the greatest offensive player of the modern game used performance enhancing drugs. Besides, y’know, before and after photography.
A person who has reviewed the evidence said that the authorities detected anabolic steroids in urine samples linked to Bonds that they gathered in connection with their investigation. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The evidence could be significant because questions have been raised about whether the œclear, which like the œcream was created to avoid detection in drug tests, was technically a steroid under federal law when Bonds testified before a federal grand jury in November 2003.
The urine-sample evidence could also have implications for another statement Bonds made before the grand jury, in which he denied ever being injected with any substances by his former trainer, Greg Anderson. Bonds said he never received injections from anyone other than his doctors. Most steroids are administered through injections.
Meanwhile, the authorities continued their efforts Wednesday to gain Anderson™s testimony about Bonds™s suspected use of banned substances. Early Wednesday morning, 20 federal agents raided the home of Anderson™s mother-in-law, according to one of Anderson™s lawyers, Mark Geragos.
Bonds was indicted in November 2007, and the authorities have since targeted Anderson™s mother-in-law, Madeline Gestas, and Anderson™s wife, Nicole Gestas, in an effort to put more pressure on Anderson to testify. The authorities have focused on the finances of Madeline Gestas, a California businesswoman who has been the subject of tax liens. Nicole Gestas is also under investigation in connection with her own finances.
œEven the Mafia spares the women and children, Geragos said in a telephone interview in discussing Wednesday™s raid. œThe government is obsessed with trying to get Greg to testify about Barry, but he never will.