Barry Bonds tested positive for steroids

From the Daily  News

Barry Bonds tested positive for steroids four times in drug screenings conducted between 2000 and 2003, according to court documents unsealed on Wednesday by the federal judge who will preside over the home run king’s perjury trial next month in San Francisco.

One test performed by BALCO to determine if anabolic steroids were detectable in Bonds’ urine found the steroid methenolone. Two other tests found traces of another steroid, nandrolone, in Bonds’ urine, according to a filing by prosecutors.

Records seized from the home of Greg Anderson, the personal trainer who has spent two stints in prison for refusing to testify against Bonds, “provide a detailed record of steroid distribution from Anderson to Bonds from 2001 to 2003,” the prosecutors’ filing said.

Urine samples Bonds provided to Major League Baseball during its 2003 survey testing program were analyzed again by the UCLA Olympic lab and found to contain THC, a once-undetectable steroid, and Clomiphene, a female fertility drug used by hard-core steroid users. Bonds never failed a Major League Baseball steroid test, but the sample from MLB’s 2003 survey testing was seized from a lab by federal investigators in 2004 and analyzed again.

The presence of the steroid in Bonds’ urine, however, doesn’t necessarily give the government a smoking gun when baseball’s home run king goes to trial next month on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. Bonds acknowledged using a “clear” substance and a “cream” substance during his late 2003 testimony before the grand jury investigating the BALCO steroid scandal, but he said he believed he was using flaxseed oil and an arthritis balm and claimed he never knowingly used steroids.

Prosecutors, however, argue that Bonds had his blood and urine tested by BALCO because he wanted to determine if  the performance-enhancing drugs he was using could be detected.

“The test results raised the inference that Bonds was a knowing recipient of steroids who was knowingly having his blood and urine tested as part of his regimen of steroids use and receipt,” the prosecutors said in the documents.

Prosecutors also said in the documents that they want to enter a transcript of conversation that Steve Hoskins, Bonds’ one-time business associate, had with Anderson. Anderson discussed injecting Bonds with performance-enhancing drugs during conversation, which Hoskins surreptitiously tape recorded.

Witnesses will also testify that Bonds exhibited many of the symptoms of steroid use, including increased muscle mass, back acne, shrunken testicles and an erratic sexual drive.

Bonds is headed for trial in U.S. District Court on March 2 on charges that he lied to the grand jury when he said he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs. Bonds’ attorneys filed a motion under seal last month to exclude drug test results, doping calendars and other documents from the trial. The slugger’s lawyers said the information in the documents could taint the jury pool and damage Bonds’ chances for a fair trial.