Major League Baseball

Greg Anderson jailed for contempt

Published Mar. 22, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

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Barry Bonds' former trainer and childhood friend refused to testify Tuesday in Bonds' perjury trial and was ordered to jail for contempt of court by a federal judge in San Francisco, KGO-TV reported.

US District Court Judge Susan Illston tried to persuade Greg Anderson to change his mind, saying it was important for the truth to come out. After swearing him in and putting Anderson on the witness stand, Illstone asked if he would testify and he responded that he would not.

Anderson, the first witness called in Bonds' federal trial, was expected not to cooperate. Anderson has already spent more than a year in a California prison for refusing to testify before a grand jury about a Bay Area laboratory, BALCO, that was under investigation for supplying performance-enhancing drugs to elite athletes, including Bonds.

Anderson was considered a key witness in the case against Bonds. Prosecutors claim that Anderson injected Bonds with human growth hormone and gave him steroids. In opening arguments on Tuesday, US attorneys said federal authorities found human growth hormone along with vials of "the cream" and "the clear," both of which are steroids created by BALCO.

Prosecutors plan to bring forward at least one witness, Bonds' friend Kathy Hoskins, who is expected to testify that she saw Anderson injecting Bonds.

Bonds, the all-time major league leader in home runs faces four counts of perjury and one of obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to a grand jury in the BALCO investigation about his using steroids.

Bonds' lawyer, Allen Ruby, told jurors on Tuesday that Bonds had told the grand jury investigating BALCO everything he knew when he testified before them in 2003. As far as he knew, Bonds thought Anderson was giving him flax seed oil and that the cream Anderson rubbed into his muscles was for arthritis. He denied taking human growth hormones and said he never allowed anyone other than a physician to give him injections.
 

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