SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- Barry Bonds tested positive for steroids in 2000, a year before he set baseball's home run record for a single season, government-released documents showed.
In documents filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, prosecutors provided more details on the claim that Bonds failed multiple tests for banned drugs and then lied about it to the grand jury probing the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative steroids scandal, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday.
Prosecutors made the disclosure in a motion asking Judge Susan Illston to allow the indictment to go to trial as presented. Bonds asked the judge to dismiss parts of the indictment and reduce others, arguing that prosecutors had asked Bonds "fundamentally ambiguous" questions when he testified before the grand jury.
Bonds was indicted in November on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice, with the government claiming investigators seized "positive tests" for Bonds in their probe of BALCO but provided no specifics. Bonds pleaded not guilty to the charges and repeatedly denied before a grand jury in 2003 ever using banned performance-enhancing drugs.
A hearing is scheduled for Feb. 29.
