Barry Bonds gets probation for obstruction in steroids probe

Barry Bonds, Major League Baseball's career home-run record holder, was sentenced to two years of probation for obstructing a U.S. probe of steroid use in professional sports.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston issued the sentence today in federal court in San Francisco. Prosecutors had asked her to send Bonds to prison for 15 months. The U.S. Probation Office recommended that the former slugger serve probation and no jail time. Bonds's attorneys also asked that the former San Francisco Giants left fielder be sentenced to probation. Bonds must also pay a $4,000 fine, the judge said.

Illston put the sentence on hold after lawyers for Bonds said they would file an appeal in the case.

Bonds, 47, was found guilty of obstruction in April for what prosecutors called his evasive response in 2003 before a federal grand jury. Asked if his trainer, Greg Anderson, ever gave him anything that required a syringe for injection, Bonds didn't immediately say yes or no. In a 146-word response, he spoke about being a “celebrity child” who didn't “get into other people's business.”

Trial jurors couldn't reach a unanimous decision on whether Bonds lied when he told the grand jury he didn't knowingly take steroids or take human growth hormone. Illston declared a mistrial on those charges.

Bonds's attorneys said at trial that he truthfully testified that he received performance-enhancing substances from Anderson without knowing what they were because the drugs were new at the time and Anderson told him one was flaxseed oil.

Bonds hasn't played Major League Baseball since 2007, the last of his 15 seasons with the Giants. He broke Henry Aaron's record of 755 career home runs that August. Three months later, Bonds was indicted.

The case is U.S. v. Bonds, 07-00732, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).