Barry Bonds' former personal trainer is facing prison and a judge admitted a trove of evidence while the admissibility of still more hangs in the balance after a pivotal hearing in federal court Tuesday in San Francisco, three weeks before the slugger's trial is scheduled to start.
Bonds also renewed his not guilty plea, which was made necessary when prosecutors revised the charges for the third time since the initial indictment was unsealed in November 2007. Bonds is charged with four counts of making false statements to a grand jury and one count of obstruction of justice. There was little doubt what Bonds' plea was going to be Tuesday and that the case was going to trial March 21 after Bonds' legal team and prosecutors last month told U.S. District Judge Susan Illston that there was little chance of a plea agreement.
Likewise, there was no doubt that Bonds' former personal trainer, Greg Anderson, would tell the judge Tuesday that he has no intention of taking the stand as a government witness during the trial. Anderson made a similar pledge in 2009 before Bonds' trial was put on hold until a government appeal was resolved in Bonds' favor.
Anderson has previously spent more than a year in prison on contempt charges after refusing to testify before the grand jury investigating Bonds.
The judge said that prosecutors and Bonds' legal team both want Anderson to testify. She said his testimony would spare his former clients, including several retired major league players, from being called to the witness stand to discuss how he supplied them with steroids.
Illston told Anderson that she planned to find him in contempt of court and will order him jailed during the duration of the trial. Anderson simply nodded his head when the judge asked if he intended to follow through on his vow of silence.
The judge ruled that the jury might hear, among other pieces of evidence:
• That prosecutors granted Bonds immunity from prosecution as long he testified truthfully about his drug use before the grand jury.
