US authorities drop prosecution of slugger Bonds

The US Department of Justice formally dropped efforts to prosecute Major League Baseball's disgraced home run king Barry Bonds on Tuesday.

In a one-paragraph court filing, federal prosecutors said they wouldn't try to pursue a request to the US Supreme Court to consider a lower court's reversal of Bonds's felony conviction for giving evasive testimony about whether he used performance-enhancing drugs.

The move ends a protracted legal saga that has lingered in the courts for more than a decade.

Former San Francisco Giants slugger Bonds was indicted on obstruction of justice and perjury charges in 2007.

He was eventually convicted of a single count of obstruction in 2011 for a rambling answer to a federal grand jury as to whether he received injections of steroids from personal trainer Greg Anderson while he played for the Giants.

Bonds was acquitted on all perjury charges at his original trial, and in April the US Court of Appeals overturned his conviction on the obstruction charge.

Bonds had been sentenced in 2011 to two years' probation, 250 hours of community service, a fine of $4,000 and ordered to spend a month of monitored home confinement.

He served the home confinement before his conviction was overturned.

Bonds was initially called to testify before the grand jury probing the BALCO steroid distribution scandal that rocked the sports world.

Bonds testified that he wasn't aware that substances he was using called the "cream" and the "clear" were in fact steroids.

The clearing of his criminal record could eventually pave the way for his entry into baseball's Hall of Fame.

Bonds is US baseball's all-time leader with 762 career home runs and set the single-season record for homers with 73 in 2001.

But the 51-year-old has been snubbed for Hall of Fame honors in his first three years of eligibility.
Source: AFP