SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Barry Bonds is going to have a longer wait for his verdict.
The jury considering four felony counts against the home run king deliberated without a conclusion for the second day Monday. The eight women and four men, who started their discussions on Friday before a weekend break, will resume work Tuesday morning.
The gap between closing arguments and verdict has grown longer than the gap between Bonds’ record-tying and record-breaking home runs in 2007. The former MVP broke Hank Aaron’s home run record on Aug. 7 when he hit No. 756, three days after matching Aaron.
Bonds, who also holds the single-season home run mark of 73, is charged with three counts of making false statements to a grand jury in 2003 and one count of obstruction of justice. He’s accused of lying when he denied receiving steroids and human growth hormone from personal trainer Greg Anderson, and for saying he allowed only doctors to give him an injection.
For those trying to get a peek into the jury’s thoughts, the panel has made requests to rehear two pieces of evidence that both center on the injection count.
On Friday, the jurors asked to hear a replay of the 2003 secret recording made by former Bonds business partner Steve Hoskins in which Anderson talks about injecting the slugger. Before the resumption of deliberations Monday, the panel spent 71 minutes hearing court reporter James Yeomans read back the March 31 testimony of Bonds’ former personal shopper Kathy Hoskins — Steve’s sister. She testified that she saw Anderson inject Bonds near the navel in 2002, becoming the only one of 25 witnesses at the trial to claim firsthand knowledge of Bonds being injected.
“This was very damaging testimony that contrasted starkly with his denials of steroid use that are the heart of this perjury case,” said legal observer Joshua Berman, a former prosecutor who is now a criminal defense attorney in Washington D.C.
However, it’s impossible to discern how many of the 12 jurors are focusing on that testimony and whether they feel the injection answer was material, or in layman’s terms, important, to the grand jury’s investigation. To convict Bonds of making a false statement, the jury must find both that what Bonds said was a lie and one that had an effect on the grand jury.
Anderson was jailed during the trial because he refused to testify. No witnesses said they personally saw Bonds receive drugs — Kathy Hoskins said she did not ask what was in the syringe Anderson used on Bonds.
Now 46, Bonds testified before the grand jury that he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs, and that Anderson told him he was using flaxseed oil and arthritic balm — not designer steroids that were undetectable at the time.
Most of the jurors scribbled notes when Hoskins’ testimony about the injection was read back. Bonds, wearing a dark suit, white shirt and blue tie, kept an eye on the jurors during early portions of the reading, then focused on the clerk.
Just before the jury finished for the day at 3:45 p.m., lead Bonds lawyer Allen Ruby was in the hallway outside the courtroom, wondering when deliberations would be recessed.