Former Major League Baseball slugger Barry Bonds was convicted a decade ago of obstruction-of-justice in an incident that related to the raid of the BALCO lab, which provided performance enhancing drugs to professional athletes.
This week, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the player’s conviction was going to be upheld. The conviction came from Bonds’ appearance before a grand jury investigating performance-enhancing drugs. The courts argued that during the hearings, Bonds was being “evasive.”
Bonds is now going to begin serving a 30 day sentence of house arrest and two years probation.
“Meanwhile, I also intend to seek further judicial review of the important legal issues presented by the appeal that was decided today,” Bonds said. “This has been a long and difficult chapter in my life and I look forward to moving beyond it once I have fulfilled the penalties ordered by the court.”
During the hearings, Bonds was granted immunity from prosecution if he agreed to testify truthfully. But he was charged for saying that he didn’t know that the oil he was using was indeed a performance-enhancing drug.
His 30-days of house arrest is a light sentence compared to what prosecutors were seeking. They’d originally sought to give him 15 months in prison for his crimes. Maybe he should consider himself lucky.
