{"id":5159,"date":"2011-03-31T15:40:21","date_gmt":"2011-03-31T19:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=5159"},"modified":"2011-03-31T15:40:21","modified_gmt":"2011-03-31T19:40:21","slug":"barry-bonds-is-not-on-trial-for-alleged-steroid-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=5159","title":{"rendered":"Barry Bonds Is Not On Trial  For Alleged Steroid Use"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BY LEON B. CREWS<br \/>\nSentinel Staff Writer<br \/>\n(An Analysis)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Federal prosecutors trying <strong>Barry Bonds<\/strong> for perjury have so far presented a strong case with testimony from several witnesses that the record-setting retired baseball player did in fact use steroids. <strong>Bonds<\/strong> admitted to a grand jury in 2003 that he thought the cream was Flaxseed oil. The question the government needs to prove is whether or not Bonds lied about knowing the cream had steroids.<\/p>\n<p>According to testimony from his former girlfriend, <strong>Kim Bell<\/strong>, <strong>Bonds<\/strong> told her he was using steroids and that he blamed the drugs for an elbow injury.<\/p>\n<p>All of this makes for good drama and is great for the moronic sports analysts who are always clueless about the raw facts. The point is <strong>Bonds<\/strong> is not on trial for using steroids. However, the focus of the media is that he is on trial for steroid use, and they have even revealed information Bell provided to prosecutors about <strong>Bonds\u2019<\/strong> physical appearance. None of this is relevant to the fact that he is on trial for perjury, not for alleged steroid use.<\/p>\n<p>The Giambi brothers, <strong>Jason <\/strong>and <strong>Jeremy<\/strong>, admitted to using steroids, and testified they received steroids from Bonds\u2019 former trainer, <strong>Greg Anderson<\/strong>. By revealing that fact, we are supposed to think that <strong>Anderson<\/strong> also fed <strong>Bonds<\/strong> steroids.<\/p>\n<p>Putting the cart before the horse couldn\u2019t come close to the perception the media is laying out on <strong>Bonds<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Also keep in mind, perjury is hard to prove because one must be able to establish beyond a reasonable doubt what the defendant was thinking at the time of the alleged perjury. That means one must clearly establish an internal mind set based on external behavior.<\/p>\n<p>There is also the problem of jury instruction about the legal standard needed for conviction.<\/p>\n<p>The federal government has spent in excess of $6 million in their effort to not just ruin <strong>Bonds\u2019<\/strong> career, but have him sent to prison.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bonds<\/strong> is Major League Baseball\u2019s record-holder for home runs in a career (762) and a season (73), and like <strong>Henry Aaron<\/strong> before him, there is a segment of society that still recognizes <strong>Herman \u201cBabe\u201d Ruth<\/strong> as the king, and are not willing to relinquish that claim. Oh, let\u00eds not bring up the character of <strong>Ruth<\/strong>. No one ever wants to bring that up when talking about baseball\u2019s best.<\/p>\n<p>The fact is, even after <strong>Bonds <\/strong>has walked out of court clear of this alleged perjury, the government will continue to spend our hard earned dollars to get him behind bars, or at least disgraced and removed from any consideration of entering Cooperstown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY LEON B. CREWS Sentinel Staff Writer (An Analysis) Federal prosecutors trying Barry Bonds for perjury have so far presented a strong case with testimony from several witnesses that the record-setting retired baseball player did in fact use steroids. Bonds admitted to a grand jury in 2003 that he thought the cream was Flaxseed oil. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}