Feds Say They Have The Smoking Gun, Er, Urine Sample, In Bonds Perjury Case

You thought that you were in the clear on this steroids thing, Barry, but like all criminals, you made one key mistake. You peed in a cup.

This is going to be a crushing blow to Indian pitchers Rinku and Dinesh. Some had speculated that Bonds might be in the clear on grand jury perjury charges when it was revealed that his use of the “cream” and the “clear” designer substances were not illegal at the time he used them.

But authorities preparing for his perjury trial say that they have other, more definitive evidence that Bonds took another, illegal form of steroids. According to the New York Times, "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.

So we're back to where we started. Bonds about to go to trial for lying to a grand jury about steroid use, and the rest of us fairly ambivalent to it all. Really, we just want to see he and Rickey Henderson both get signed by the Athletics. But this federal steroids case is nowhere near being over.

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.

“Even the Mafia spares the women and children,” Geragos said in a telephone interview in discussing Wednesday’s raid. “The government is obsessed with trying to get Greg to testify about Barry, but he never will.”

It's too bad that a simple country lawyer like Gerragos, who shuns the spotlight and only wishes to return to his blue collar, pro bono clients, has to be paraded before the public like this.

Urine Samples Said To Link Bonds To Steroids [New York Times] Feds Raid Home Of Bonds' Trainer's Mother-In-Law [SFGate]