Friday, February 15, 2008

And Speaking of Lies . . .

That report yesterday that Barry Bonds (remember him?) failed a drug test after breaking the home run record in 2001? Not so much:
Federal prosecutors mistakenly filed court papers Thursday that incorrectly stated that Barry Bonds failed a steroids test in November of 2001 -- one month after breaking the single-season home run mark.

U.S. attorney spokesman Josh Eaton now says that the reference in Thursday's government court filing regarding Bonds testing positive was actually referring to a November 2000 test that was previously disclosed in the indictment of Bonds and had already been reported.

It probably goes nowhere, but if I'm Bonds' lawyer I yell and scream at the top of my lungs that the feds are trying to taint the jury pool by releasing false information.

And if you're keeping score at home, yesterday's final score is Roger and Barry 2, McNamee and feds, 0.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

They have a hearing next week. Can the defense use the enormous publicity generated by this typo (it was on every news channel, on the net, etc.) to bolster the case that this indictment is just meant to defame Bonds, not to prosecute him for any crime? They've cost him a bunch of money and they're repeatedly trying to shame him in the very willing press, but they can't even keep their stories straight. Could the judge actually dismiss the case because, well, it's true that this whole investigation has just been about defaming Barry Bonds.

Craig Calcaterra said...

Not really. I don't know the exact circumstances of the mistake here. If it was just a wrong year typed in and then it was quickly corrected, it goes nowhere.

Even if it isn't -- say, a whole erroneous paragrpah was in there for a news cycle and then it was corrected after the pasage of some time -- well, Bonds' people could make some hay about that, but it's not going to make the case go away.

And while I understand your point here, I tend to think that the idea that this is merely about "defaming Barry Bonds" goes too far. I think there are issues with the perjury case as pled (i.e. the questions and answers aren't as clear as they would normally be in a perjury case) and the that the motives for brining this case are less about the integrity of the justice system and more about bringing down a big name, but to suggest it's defamation? Well, have you read Game of Shadows?