After more than a decade of being investigated by the federal government, baseball’s controversial home run king — Barry Bonds — no longer has a criminal record after the U.S. Justice Department filed a a court document Tuesday saying it will no longer seek charges against him.
In a 10-1 ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded there was insufficient evidence to back up the charge that Bonds’ testimony in front of a federal grand jury regarding the BALCO steroids scandal interfered with a federal probe into the Bay Area laboratory tied to doping in professional baseball, according the to San Jose Mercury News.
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Bonds’ legal battle started in 2003 when his name surfaced in connection with BALCO. Four years after his testimony, Bonds was indicted on perjury and obstruction charges and accused of lying to a grand jury. He avoided a perjury conviction, but was found guilty of obstruction for a roundabout answer when asked about his former personal trainer, Greg Anderson, and if he ever injected Bonds with steroids.
Bonds served his one-month, electronic-monitoring sentence at his California home while his lawyers appealed the conviction that was eventually overturned in April.
And according to Tuesday’s filing, the U.S. Solicitor General, who, according to the Mercury News, makes final decisions on whether to appeal cases to a higher court (the U.S. Supreme Court in this instance), decided not to pursue any further Bonds and his appeal.
Now Bonds, who did admit to unknowingly using the substances the “cream” and the “clear,” has a clean criminal history to present to Hall of Fame voters along with his 762 career home runs. He has never received more than 36.8 percent of the vote for Hall of Fame induction, which requires a minimum of 75 percent.