Barry Bonds

Barry Bonds acknowledged in 2003 that weight trainer Greg Anderson was dealing steroids, saying, “Greg was only selling the steroids to help his kid,” former Giants trainer Stan Conte testified today.

Called as a prosecution witness in Bonds’ trial on perjury charges, Conte recounted a 15-minute conversation he said he had with Bonds shortly after federal drug agents had raided the BALCO steroids lab in Burlingame, seizing drugs and documents.

In the conversation, which Conte said took place in his office in the Giants’ training room at Pac Bell Park, Bonds wanted to talk about BALCO and Anderson, the baseball star’s weight trainer.

“Barry was talking about the BALCO raid,” said Conte, now the trainer for the Los Angeles Dodgers. “He said it was unfair what the government was doing to Greg Anderson – they raided his house.”

Conte continued: “Barry (said he) trusted Greg Anderson and that he didn’t know anything about the steroids, that Greg was only selling the steroids to help his kid."

Conte said he told Bonds they shouldn’t be speaking on the topic, because both had been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury that was investigating BALCO.

Bonds is on trial for perjury and obstruction of justice, accused of falsely telling the grand jury that he had never knowingly used banned drugs. In his 2003 grand jury testimony, Bonds said he had only used items that Anderson had identified to him as flaxseed oil and arthritis balm.

Bonds, baseball’s home run champion, has pleaded not guilty. His trial is in its second week in federal court in San Francisco.

Barry Bonds’ former girlfriend testified Monday that the Giants star confessed to her that he was using steroids, contending that “other players” were also using drugs to succeed in big league baseball.

Kimberly Bell, who says she dated Bonds for nine years, told the jury in Bonds’ perjury trial that baseball’s home run champion blamed a career-threatening elbow injury in 1999 on his steroid use.

The drugs “somehow caused the muscles and tendons to grow faster than they could handle and (the elbow) somehow blew out,” Bell said Bonds told her after the 1999 baseball season.

Bell, a San Jose graphic artist for much of the relationship, said Bonds told her he only used banned drugs infrequently, saying, “he didn’t shoot it up every day like body builders did.” She also said Bonds told her “other players do it.”

Of the other players, Bonds said, “That’s how they were getting ahead, that’s how they were achieving, by doing steroids,” Bell said.

Speaking in a soft, matter-of-fact voice, Bell spent about an hour describing the course of her stormy relationship with Bonds to federal prosecutor Jeff Nedrow.

She said it began with a chance meeting in the Candlestick Park players’ parking lot in 1994, continued through Bonds’ first divorce and second marriage, and ended with an extraordinarily bitter breakup in 2003, months before federal agents raided the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative in Burlingame.

Barry Bonds’ former girlfriend testified Monday that the Giants star confessed to her in 1999 that he was using steroids.

Kimberly Bell, a former graphic artist from San Jose who says she dated Bonds from 1994 to 2003, told the jury that Bonds blamed an elbow injury on his use of banned drugs.

“It somehow caused the muscles and tendons to grow faster than it could handle and it somehow blew out,” Bell testified in Bonds’ trial on perjury charges.

She said Bonds told her, “He didn’t shoot it up every day like body builders did.” She also said Bonds told her “other players do it.”

“That’s how they were getting ahead, that’s how they were achieving, by doing steroids,” Bell quoted Bonds as saying.

Bell testified in a matter-of-fact voice for much of her first hour on the witness stand, describing the course of a relationship that she said began in the parking lot at Candlestick Park in 1994 and ended with a bitter breakup in 2003.

Later, she faced intense cross examination from defense lawyer Cristina Arguedas, who said Bell had tried to profit from the broken relationship by posing nude for Playboy and pitching a book, “In the Shadow of a Giant,” about Bonds.

Bonds, baseball’s reigning home run champion, is accused of lying about his use of steroids in testimony before the federal grand jury that investigated the BALCO steroids scandal. In the 2003 testimony, Bonds told the grand jury he had never knowingly used banned drugs. He has pleaded not guilty. The trial is in its second week in federal court in San Francisco.

Barry Bonds’ onetime business manager left the witness stand Thursday after four hours of questioning that exposed inconsistencies and inaccuracies in his account of the former Giants star as a serial steroid user.

In response to, methodical cross examination by Allen Ruby, Bonds’ lead lawyer, Steve Hoskins couldn’t provide details about when and where the events he testified about had occurred.

Often, Hoskins had difficulty recalling what was said in a series of meetings with federal agents, and sometimes his account conflicted with the agents’ reports.

And at first, Hoskins had trouble recognizing his own voice on the secret tape recording he made of Bonds’ weight trainer discussing the banned drugs he was allegedly providing the Giants star.

Through it all, Hoskins insisted that he had made the 2003 recording of trainer Greg Anderson as part of an effort to induce Bonds to stop using banned drugs – and not, as Ruby contended, as part of an extortion plot.

Bonds, baseball’s home run champion, is on trial in San Francisco federal court, accused of lying about his use of steroids to the grand jury that investigated the BALCO steroids scandal.

Bonds pleaded not guilty, saying he never knowingly used banned drugs.

Starting Wednesday and continuing Thursday, Ruby probed holes in the details of Hoskins’ account.

One interchange involved whether Hoskins knew in advance Bonds intended to complain to the FBI that the business manager was forging his autograph on sports memorabilia and keeping the proceeds.

Bonds’ complaint, made after he says he fired Hoskins in 2003, proved unfounded, the government says.

Claiming Barry Bonds’ steroid use was “out of hand,” the slugger’s former business manager said today he made a secret recording in the Giants’ clubhouse as part of a campaign to dissuade Bonds from using banned drugs.

Steve Hoskins, a boyhood friend of Bonds who was his business manager until a bitter breakup, said that in 2003 he recorded weight trainer Greg Anderson describing the array of steroids that he was allegedly providing to baseball’s home run champion.

Hoskins, the government’s second witness in Bonds’ trial on perjury charges, said he had spent years trying to get Bonds off drugs.

He said he made the tape for Bobby Bonds, the former Giants center fielder and Bonds’ father, as part of that effort.

“I was hoping Bobby would be the one who would stop him from doing it,” Hoskins said.

But Bobby Bonds died of cancer before Hoskins could play him the recording, he said. He later turned the recording over to federal agents.

During three hours of cross-examination, Hoskins insisted he made the recording out of concern for Bonds’ health – and not, as defense lawyer Allen Ruby contended, to avenge his firing.

Bonds fired Hoskins in 2003, the lawyer said, and then complained to the FBI that Hoskins was forging his name on memorabilia and selling it, the defense lawyer said. Ruby also charged that the government dropped the fraud investigation in exchange for Hoskins' testimony about Bonds and steroids. Hoskins, a slender man who spoke softly in court, claimed the government cut him no deals. He said his motives were pure.

Barry Bonds admitted using steroids in 1999 and then began inquiring about the side effects of the injectable steroid Winstrol, his former business manager testified Wednesday.

Steve Hoskins, Bonds’ boyhood friend and his business manager until his firing in 2003, said the Giants star told him to consult with his orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Arthur Ting, about the drug.

Bonds told him, “Find out what this steroid does and what’s the side effects of it and is it good or bad,” Hoskins said.

“He instructed me to go to Dr. Ting and find out what it was,” he said.

Hoskins said he went to Ting's office where the doctor gave him printouts of medical books describing steroid side effects. Hoskins said he delivered them to Bonds in the Giants' clubhouse.

Hoskins, son of the late San Francisco 49ers football star Bob Hoskins, said he began working for Bonds about 1993, after the slugging outfielder left the Pittsburgh Pirates to play for the Giants. He handled sales of Bonds’ sports memorabilia and sports lithographs. Hoskins, a graphic artist, said he created the lithographs and Bonds signed them, and they split the money.

Bonds kept as much as $100,000 cash in a safe in Hoskins’ business office in San Carlos, Hoskins said. Occasionally Bonds would instruct him to make cash payouts to two women – Kim Bell, Bonds’ longtime girlfriend, and another girlfriend, Piret Aava, an Estonian model then living in New York, Hoskins said.

Bonds also told him to make cash payments to his weight trainer, Greg Anderson, who by the government’s account was Bonds’ steroid source.

During his testimony Bonds watched Hoskins impassively, sometimes jotting notes on a pad.

The federal drug agent who spearheaded the BALCO steroids case accused Barry Bonds yesterday of thwarting his investigation by giving grand jury testimony that was “inconsistent with the facts.”

Jeff Novitzky, the government’s point man on a series of high-profile probes into steroids in elite sports, was leadoff prosecution witness in the former Giants slugger’s trial on charges of lying under oath about his use of banned drugs.

During his 2003 testimony before the grand jury that was probing the steroid ring operated by the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative in Burlingame, Bonds, baseball’s home run champion, said he never knowingly used BALCO drugs.

The testimony, which came after Bonds was granted immunity from prosecution for drug crimes, “absolutely” roiled the BALCO probe, Novitzky told the jury of eight women and four men in San Francisco federal court.

Bonds’ story directly contradicted the testimony of other athletes who had acknowledged to the grand jury that they had gotten undetectable designer steroids from BALCO and from Bonds’ trainer, Greg Anderson, the agent said. His account also conflicted with evidence seized in a federal raid on BALCO, the agent said.

“Mr. Bonds’ testimony was inconsistent with the facts that had been gathered to that point,” Novitzky said.

“We had to take a look at other testimony that was provided that was contrary to Mr. Bonds’. Which person is telling the truth here?”

Weight trainer Greg Anderson was ordered back to prison Tuesday for refusing to testify in Barry Bonds’ perjury trial.

At a hearing in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the burly trainer told Judge Susan Illston he would not testify for prosecutors in Bonds’ trial on charges of lying about his steroid use.

Anderson, Bonds’ boyhood friend and longtime trainer, already has served more than a year in prison for contempt of court because he refused to cooperate with the government’s probe on Bonds. He also served several months in prison after pleading guilty to steroid dealing in the BALCO steroids case.

In Bonds' trial, the judge threw out what prosecutors said was crucial evidence – private steroid test results and doping calendars – because Anderson refused to verify that he kept them for the former San Francisco Giants star.

Anderson will be imprisoned for the duration of the trial, the judge said

“If you change your mind and want to testify, just let everyone know ASAP,” the judge said. As Bonds looked on, Anderson was taken away by federal marshals. The jury was not present.

Earlier Tuesday, a federal prosecutor portrayed Bonds as an experienced steroid user who deliberately lied about his drug use to the grand jury that investigated the BALCO steroids laboratory in 2003.

But a lawyer for Bonds said  that the former Giants star “told the truth” and “provided the grand jury with useful information” – but then was falsely accused of drug use by “bitter”  former friends and employees.

A jury of eight women and four men was selected Monday to hear the perjury trial of Barry Bonds, former San Francisco Giants slugger and baseball’s reigning home run champion.

Federal judge Susan Illston spent only one day to choose the jury that will weigh the evidence against Bonds, who is accused of lying under oath in 2003 to the grand jury that investigated the BALCO sports steroids scandal.

Bonds testified he had never knowingly used banned drugs. He has pleaded not guilty to five felony charges – four of perjury, or lying under oath, and one of obstruction of justice.

The jury, selected from about 100 Bay Area panelists, includes a woman who likes to wear her souvenir Oakland Athletics jersey to A’s games, two African American panelists and a retiree who said he thought the congressional hearing on steroids in sports was a waste of money.

The judge, worried about possible harassment, is keeping jurors’ names a secret until the end of the trial, identifying them in court only by jury numbers.

Few baseball fans made the final cut.

At mid-afternoon, when prosecutor Matthew Parrella asked Giant fans among approximately 50 prospective jurors to identify themselves, only six hands went up.

Testimony in what is expected to be a hard-fought trial was to begin in San Francisco today after dueling opening statements: first by Parrella, the lead prosecutor, and then by Allen Ruby, leader of Bonds' defense team.

After that Judge Illston said she would hold one more hearing for Greg Anderson, Bonds’ weight trainer, who has already served more than a year in federal prison because he has refused to cooperate with the government probe of Bonds.

Jury selection began in San Francisco today for the trial of former Giants slugger Barry Bonds, who is accused of lying under oath when he denied using steroids.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston’s clerk swore in an initial panel of 38 prospective jurors for the trial of baseball’s reigning home run champion, the biggest star in the game’s long history to face felony indictment.

He has pleaded not guilty, saying he never knowingly used steroids.

 The court clerk seated 14 panelists in the jury box, and another 24 in the courtroom. The judge said she would seat a panel of 12 jurors with four alternates for the trial, which will likely last four weeks.

The initial panelists seated in the jury box included a carpenter from Foster City, the head of a human rights fellowship program at UC Berkeley, and an Antioch retiree with prior jury service.

“It’s hard to make decisions about other people’s lives,” he remarked.

Another panelist, a retired San Francisco man who said he liked to watch baseball, said he wasn’t eager to serve.

“I would be reluctant to render a judgment against a great  athlete like Mr. Bonds so it may cloud my judgment,” he said.

A Moraga woman who formerly worked as a flight attendant on charter flights for sports teams also said she would find it difficult to be fair.

“I’m still getting over my baseball charters,” she said.

The judge said she would do most of the questioning of prospective jurors. Federal prosecutors and Bonds’ lawyers are allocated 60 minutes to ask follow-up questions of panelists.