Barry Bonds indicted for allegedly lying under oath

Home run king Barry Bonds, the owner of the most sacred record in sports and once considered a lock for the Hall of Fame, was indicted Thursday for allegedly lying under oath to a grand jury about his steroid use.

Federal prosecutors charged the 43-year-old slugger with perjury and obstruction of justice in a 10-page indictment filed in United States District Court in San Francisco, four years after investigators raided the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative and Bonds testified that he never knowingly used steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs.

According to the indictment, investigators obtained evidence that indicated Bonds, baseball's career leader in home runs with 762, had tested positive for anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs in their Sept. 3, 2003, raid at BALCO's Burlingame, Calif., offices and a subsequent raid on trainer Greg Anderson's home. Bonds, however, denied knowingly using steroids when he was confronted with evidence when he testified before the grand jury on Dec. 4, 2004.

"There's this number associated on a document with your name, and corresponding to Barry B. on the other document, and it does have these two listed anabolic steroids as testing positive with it," an unnamed prosecutor had asked Bonds, according to the indictment. "Do you follow my question?"

"I follow where you're going, yeah," Bonds responded.

"So I
guess I got to ask the question again, I mean, did you take steroids?
And specifically this test is in November of 2000," the prosecutor
continued. "So, I'm going to ask you, in the weeks and months leading
up to November 2000, were you taking steroids?"

"No."

If convicted, Bonds faces up to 30 years in prison. He is scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 7.

Bonds'
legal team said it did not believe the ballplayer would ever be
convicted and blasted the Department of Justice for what it called
unethical behavior.

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