Barry Bonds
Jeff Chiu/AP
Bonds, 46, displayed no emotion as the San Francisco jury delivered the verdict after almost four days of deliberations. The panel was unable to reach a decision on three other charges.
Bonds long has faced speculation he used steroids – the owner of Bonds’s record-setting 756th home-run ball marked it with an asterisk – but Wednesday marked the first time Bonds was convicted of a crime in association with the scandal.
Federal sentencing guidelines recommend 15 to 21 months in prison, but Bonds may serve his time in home confinement.
The case involved Bonds’s statements to a 2003 grand jury investigating whether he and other pro athletes received illegal performance-enhancing drugs from a Bay Area lab, and whether his personal trainer, Greg Anderson, injected him.
Prosecutors alleged Bonds tested positive for a steroid and a fertility drug in a urine sample months before his grand jury evidence. They also gave the jury a recording of Anderson saying how he injected steroids in response to a question about Bonds.
Bonds, the son of major leaguer Bobby Bonds, started his career in 1986 with the Pittsburgh Pirates and ended in 2007 with the San Francisco Giants.
He has seven Most Valuable Player awards and holds many records, including 762 career home runs and the most runs in a season – 73 in 2001.
