[Peace-discuss] The US vs Barry Bonds

[Neil Parthun]

Interesting take about how the Justice Department has been doing  
business since 2004 with Barry Bonds.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090309/zirin

This is a story about garbage. There's the actual garbage overzealous  
federal investigators examined in their efforts to prosecute a surly  
sports celebrity. There's the shredding of the Bill of Rights,  
crudely ignored by the government in the name of obsession and  
ambition. Finally, there's the thorough trashing of people's  
reputations, not to mention the game of baseball. Welcome to The US  
v. Barry Bonds; please disregard the stench.

The case to prove that slugger Barry Bonds perjured himself in the  
Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) steroid investigation begins  
March 2. Yet after seven years of investigation, millions of dollars  
in work hours and countless ruined reputations, the US Attorney's  
Office will arrive in court with virtually no leg to stand on. Judge  
Susan Illston struck down most of the prosecution's case, a move ESPN  
legal expert Lester Munson called a "devastating" setback for  
prosecutors. The ruling was an indictment of not only the  
government's case but its entire approach toward Bonds from day one.  
John Ashcroft's Justice Department always seemed irrationally  
determined to prosecute Bonds. It was as obsessive as the fisherman  
Santiago attempting to bring home the great marlin in Hemingway's The  
Old Man and the Sea.

The embodiment of this obsession was IRS agent Jeff Novitzky. He  
broke open the BALCO case after spending a great deal of time, to the  
adulation of the press, literally sifting through garbage and sewage.

Novitzky was given the green light by President Bush and Ashcroft to  
go for the jugular. In 2004, accompanied by eleven agents, he marched  
into Comprehensive Drug Testing, the nation's largest sports-drug  
testing company. Armed with a warrant to see the confidential drug  
tests of ten baseball players, he walked out with 4,000 supposedly  
sealed medical files, including every baseball player in the major  
leagues. As Jon Pessah wrote in ESPN magazine, "Three federal judges  
reviewed the raid. One asked, incredulously, if the Fourth Amendment  
had been repealed. Another, Susan Illston, who has presided over the  
BALCO trials, called Novitzky's actions a 'callous disregard' for  
constitutional rights. All three instructed him to return the  
records. Instead, Novitzky kept the evidence...."

It was a frightening abuse of power, all aimed at imprisoning a  
prominent African-American athlete. Yet despite the landfills of  
trash, the government's case always rested on a flimsy premise.  
Bonds's contention under oath was that anything illegal he may have  
ingested was without prior knowledge. The only person who could  
contradict Bonds was his trainer and longtime friend Greg Anderson.  
The government pressed Anderson to give testimony. He refused, citing  
a promise made by the feds that he wouldn't have to testify after  
pleading guilty to steroid distribution and money laundering in 2005.  
The feds stuck him in jail for thirteen months to soften him up, but  
he didn't crack.

Anderson has remained firm even though in January, twenty FBI and IRS  
agents raided the home of his mother-in-law and threatened to punish  
her for tax evasion if Anderson didn't spill. Similar threats have  
been made against his wife. Mark Geragos, Anderson's attorney, told  
Yahoo Sports, "It's such a blatant and transparent attempt to  
intimidate Greg. They're acting like the Gestapo. Even the mafia  
spares the women and children." Without Anderson, the state's case  
was always weak. But now it is on serious life support. Illston ruled  
most of Novitzky and the government's case inadmissible, for good  
reason.

The prosecution wanted to submit a surreptitiously recorded statement  
from Anderson as well as notations on what it calls his "drug  
calendar," even though he would not testify to authenticate any of  
the evidence. Illston, to her credit, said no dice and declared those  
items inadmissible. The government has raised the specter of jailing  
Anderson again, but Illston remarked in a raised voice that jailing  
someone twice for refusing to testify would be beyond the pale.

The government is hinting that it will appeal Illston's ruling, but  
that would indefinitely delay the trial. If the US Attorney's Office  
does continue the case, it has made clear its next line of offense:  
it will have Bonds's former mistress, Kimberly Bell, testify in  
detail about the alleged "shriveling" of Bonds's testicles. Jeff  
Novitzky should be proud.

It's way past time to say enough is enough.

Whether or not you are a Barry Bonds fan, or consider him to be just  
a step above a seal-clubbing, pitbull-fighting bank executive, every  
person of good conscience should be aghast at the way the Justice  
Department has gone about its business. Barry Bonds, Greg Anderson  
and maybe thousands of others have had their rights trampled on, all  
for the glory of a perjury case that looks to be going absolutely  
nowhere. Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama have  
strongly indicated that the government is getting out of the steroid  
monitoring business. That is welcome, but after so many years, so  
many tax dollars and so many reputations destroyed, it all feels  
positively Pyrrhic.

At the end of The Old Man and the Sea, when Santiago finally returns  
to shore, his 18-foot catch has been reduced to a skeleton. A crowd  
gathers to gawk and imagine what the magnificent marlin once was.  
Santiago completed his journey with nothing, but he felt purified for  
the battle and slept deeply and proudly. As we pick through the bones  
of Barry Bonds, I can't imagine Jeff Novitzky feels the same.

Live hard,
      Neil

We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear.
[hunter s. thompson, 1937-2005]

It isn't even about revenge, although some people seem to think it  
is...I thrive to bring them down not by being a bastard, but by  
showing the world what, exactly, they did or said.  That's why who  
and what I am isn't important to the story.  The story is what's  
important...The truth won't defend itself, though, and bastard or  
not, it's got me.
[warren ellis, 1968-]

Neil Parthun || lennybrucefan at gmail.com
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