Barry Bonds gave it a go, but in the end the government will never let a person they know lied to them ride off into the sunset unblemished. After playing legal limbo for 10 years, baseball’s “tainted” Home Run King’s conviction for obstruction of justice in his 2002 grand jury testimony into PEDs was upheld by a federal appeals court on Friday.
On Saturday, Bonds, who’s not feeling the verdict, says he wants to start serving his sentence of 30-days of house arrest ASAP, and as they say in baseball, put this PED fiasco “in the books.”
"Meanwhile, I also intend to seek further judicial review of the important legal issues presented by the appeal that was decided today," Bonds told usatoday.com. "This has been a long and difficult chapter in my life and I look forward to moving beyond it once I have fulfilled the penalties ordered by the court."
.Bonds’ claim has long been that he thought he was rubbing flaxseed oil on his body and unknowingly used. Prosecutors claim he knowlingly injected and wanted blood in the form of a 15-month bid, but the three-judge appellate panel said there was no proof that Bonds committed perjury or felony obstruction. But in failing to directly answer whether or not his trainer Greg Anderson was providing and injecting him with PEDs, Bonds was accused of being purposely “evasive.”
Judge Mary Schroeder said it was “obvious” Bonds meant to mislead — and obstruct — the grand jury's investigation into his use of PEDs.
The 30-day sentence is really a lot of posturing by the prosecution who was left with egg on its face when Bonds bodied two-thirds of the initial charges. This drawn-out resolution also finally puts an end to the decade long, emotionally draining trials and tribulations of those players that will forever be infamously known as the O.G.’s of the Steroids Era; Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire and Bonds.
