Prosecutors proved Barry Bonds was evasive when he testified before a federal grand jury in 2003 about drug injections. But they couldn't prove he was lying - at least not to all 12 jurors.
That was the assessment of jury members who spoke to reporters Wednesday after their split verdict on felony charges against baseball's all-time home run leader: guilty on obstruction of justice, deadlocked on three counts of making knowingly false statements under oath.
On one charge - that Bonds lied by denying that his trainer, Greg Anderson, or anyone other than a doctor had ever injected him with drugs - the vote was 11-1 to convict, jurors said.
But on the charges that were the core of the case - Bonds' denials of having knowingly taken steroids or human-growth hormone - jurors said majorities favored acquittal: 9-3 for the first charge, 8-4 for the second.
Drug-test evidence "shows there was definitely steroid use but didn't show that he knew it," said Fred Jacob, the jury foreman.
Jurors said a majority had not believed either of the prosecution's two key witnesses, Bonds' former mistress Kimberly Bell and Steve Hoskins, his former business manager. Both said Bonds told them he was using steroids, and Bell described changes in Bonds' appearance and behavior that prosecutors attributed to steroid use.
"We felt like we couldn't trust (Bell's) testimony," said a juror named Nyiesha, who like most of the panel members declined to give her last name. Referring to Bell's complaints that Bonds had mistreated her, Nyiesha said, "She had a lot of reasons for not wanting to vouch for Barry."
Jurors "had a lot of difficulty with (Hoskins') testimony because he changed his story quite a bit," said Jacob.
Jurors said they largely discounted Hoskins' secret tape recording of Anderson in which the trainer described injecting someone - Bonds, according to prosecutors - with steroids. They said the tape was practically inaudible and that they were hampered by the lack of a transcript, which was shown to them in court but never admitted into evidence.
"You couldn't really make out a lot of words," said a juror named Jessica. Even the transcript they read while listening to the tape never quoted Anderson as using Bonds' name, she said, so "they could have been talking about anybody."
It was a different story with prosecution witness Kathy Hoskins, Steve Hoskins' sister and Bonds' former personal shopper, who said she saw Bonds getting an injection from Anderson. That was the basis of the false-statement charge that produced the 11-1 deadlock, and jurors said the testimony also led to the conviction for obstruction of justice.
"She really was the most credible, the most heartfelt" witness, said a juror named Steve. He said she gained credibility by saying she was testifying reluctantly against Bonds.
Nyiesha said she was the lone holdout against convicting Bonds of lying about never having been injected by anyone except a doctor.
But all 12 found that he was deliberately evasive when asked whether Anderson had injected him with drugs, and voted to convict him of obstruction.
Jacob, the foreman, said jurors read Bonds' initial response - which referred to his friendship with Anderson, fishing and being the son of another baseball star, Bobby Bonds - and felt like saying, "Come on, you're just telling stories here. Just say yes or no."
The deliberations were generally cordial but included some "tense moments," Nyiesha said. Steve said overwrought jurors burst into tears on two or three occasions.
Jacob said vote tallies changed frequently, but jurors with strong feelings on both sides made unanimous verdicts impossible on three of the counts.
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