The government wants Anderson to authenticate doping calendars and private steroid tests that they say the trainer arranged to track Bonds' steroid use. Without his testimony, the evidence is inadmissible, the judge has ruled.
Novitsky finished testifying today. According to this article, he did not come off as likable but he also wasn't damaged on cross-examination.
The Government's second witness today was Bonds' former businesss manager and childhood friend, Steven Hoskins. He told the jury Bonds admitted using steroids in 2000. He also testified he saw Greg Anderson leaving Bonds' bedroom with a syringe in his hand:
Hoskins said Bonds complained to him in 2000 about the effects of steroid injections in his buttocks....[He said] that the steroid, the shots were making his butt sore,” Hoskins told the federal court jury today.
Hoskin tape recorded several conversations, and a portion of one conversation with Bonds' father was played to the jury today.
Bonds' attorney, Allen Ruby, attempted to impeach Hoskins' credibiltiy, accusing him of trying to extort money from Bonds and forging his name on sports memorabilia.
Allen Ruby, Bonds’s attorney, told the jury yesterday that Hoskins forged Bonds’s name on sports memorabilia that he was selling. Ruby said Hoskins became a witness for the government after Bonds turned over information about the forgery to prosecutors, months before his grand jury testimony. Federal prosecutors dropped an investigation of the forgeries, according to court documents.
Under cross examination, Hoskins said he did sign Bonds' name on occasion—but only with Bonds' permission. Hoskins also said he secretly recorded conversations with Bonds' doctor and business lawyer. Hoskins said his recording of Dr. Arthur Ting was made in late 2003 or 2004, in hopes of dissuading Bonds from using steroids.
During opening arguments yesterday, Bonds' attorney told the jury Bond had indeed used steroids, but that he was misled by trainer Greg Anderson and didn't know they were steroids.
A reporter at the Boston Globe asks whether the Bonds will be convicted or just embarrassed.
Notebooks in hand, they scribbled words like testicular atrophy, heard about female fertility drugs, and were told a bitter ex-mistress and equally bitter former childhood friend of Bonds would soon be taking the stand to help explain it all.
Hopefully, one other thing will be explained along the way: After spending more than seven years and millions of dollars chasing Bonds, just what is it the government hopes to gain by convicting him of some relatively minor charges of lying to a grand jury?
