Accompanied by his wife, Liz, Barry Bonds enters US District Court in San Francisco for his arraignment yesterday.
(Paul Sakuma/Associated Press)
Barry Bonds, the face of a steroid crisis that has posed the greatest threat to baseball's integrity since the 1919 Black Sox gambling scandal, pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges of perjury and obstruction of justice stemming from his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs in chasing the career home run record.
While onlookers outside US District Court in his hometown of San Francisco chanted, "Barry, Barry," the embattled home run king formally launched a legal effort to clear his name and remove the taint from his record.
Bonds, 43, would face more than two years in prison and as much as $1 million in fines if he were convicted of four counts of perjury and one count of obstructing justice. He also would be cast into baseball infamy as a chemically enhanced cheater.
"Barry Bonds is innocent," his chief defense attorney, Allen Ruby, said outside the courthouse after Bonds was released on a $500,000 personal recognizance bond. "He has trust and faith in the justice system. He will defend these charges and we're confident of a good outcome."
Bonds left little doubt in assembling a six-member defense team that he intends to vigorously challenge the 10-page indictment a federal grand jury issued last month. He is charged with repeatedly lying under oath when he denied knowingly using anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs during a period in which he set the season home run record (73) in 2001 and pursued Hank Aaron's career record of 755.
Bonds arrived in court the day after Major League Baseball added two outfielders - Baltimore's Jay Gibbons and Kansas City's Jose Guillen - to the list of big leaguers who have been suspended for violating a ban on using illegal substances. The court appearance also came less than a week before former Senator George Mitchell is expected to issue a sweeping report on the influence of performance-enhancing drugs on the national pastime.
Bonds, who submitted Thursday to a mug shot and fingerprinting by federal marshals, is expected to make his next legal maneuver a motion to dismiss the charges.
"As we told the judge in court, there may be defects on the face of the indictment," Ruby said. "If you just read it, you can see the defects."
Federal prosecutors conducted a four-year investigation before alleging that Bonds "did corruptly endeavor to influence, obstruct, and impede the due administration of justice by knowingly giving grand jury testimony that was intentionally evasive, false, and misleading."
Claiming they can prove Bonds tested positive for steroids and other performance-enhancing substances during his home run chase, prosecutors allege he lied in 2003 when he testified that he never used steroids and human growth hormone that his personal trainer, Greg Anderson, gave him and never allowed Anderson to inject him with performance-enhancing drugs.
Anderson has refused to testify against Bonds and spent more than a year in jail on a contempt charge before prosecutors chose to proceed without his testimony and asked a judge to release him.
Bonds, nattily dressed and appearing relaxed, was flanked by his wife, Liz, and legal team when he arrived in the 19th-floor courtroom, two floors up from where he testified before the grand jury in 2003. He said little during the 30-minute court proceeding other than giving his name and age and acknowledging that he understood he had a right to a court-appointed lawyer if he could not afford one and a right to a trial within 70 days (the case is expected to take months, if not more than a year, to resolve).
Bonds waived his right to have the indictment read in court and watched as Ruby entered a not guilty plea on his behalf. Ruby also successfully opposed a motion by prosecutors for Bonds to surrender his passport and limit his travel as part of his bail conditions. Ruby argued the restriction would interfere with Bonds's job as a baseball player.
Though Bonds became a free agent in October after playing 15 years with the Giants, the vast majority of teams are considered wary of signing him because of the federal charges and widespread suspicions about his steroid use. However, the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday quoted a major league executive as saying, "There is no doubt in my mind that Oakland will sign Bonds. I'd be shocked if it didn't happen."
The A's open the 2008 season against the Red Sox in Japan.
Baseball's all-time leader in home runs (762), walks (2,558), and intentional walks (688), Bonds is on the threshold of several other career milestones and has said he wants to play another season. He is 65 hits shy of 3,000, four RBIs shy of 2,000, 38 extra-base hits short of surpassing Aaron's all-time record (1,477), and 69 runs short of breaking Rickey Henderson's career mark (2,295).
As the first baseball star to face criminal charges stemming from the steroid scandal, Bonds is the latest elite athlete whose connection to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative near San Francisco has landed him in federal court. The government's BALCO inquiry already has yielded convictions against six individuals, including Anderson; the firm's founder, Victor Conte Jr.; and three-time Olympic gold medalist Marion Jones.
All six individuals reached plea agreements with prosecutors rather than go to trial. But Bonds's lawyers have insisted he will not accept a plea bargain, a position consistent with Bonds's public assertion after he hit his 756th home run in August to break Aaron's 33-year-old record.
"This record is not tainted at all," Bonds said, three months before the federal indictment was issued.
He is due back in court Feb. 7.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report; Bob Hohler can be reached at hohler@globe.com.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
