Former Aide Says She Saw Trainer Inject Bonds
By RONALD BLUM
AP Sports Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Tears streaming from her eyes, Barry Bonds' former personal shopper became the first and only one of the government's 23 witnesses at his federal trial to say she saw the all-time home run leader getting an injection from his trainer.
Kathy Hoskins was the first eyewitness to testify that Bonds' personal trainer - Greg Anderson, who was later convicted of dealing steroids - injected the slugger. She said Thursday that the scene unfolded at Bonds' well-appointed Bay Area home in 2002. As part of her job, she packed the baseball star's clothes for road trips.
Anderson came into the bedroom as she was filling a suitcase.
"Barry was like, 'Let's do it right here,'" she testified, using a tissue to repeatedly dab at her eyes and brow.
"'This is Kathy. That's my girl. She ain't going to say nothing to nobody,'" she quoted Bonds as saying. "So Greg shot him in the belly button."
"It was a regular, normal-size syringe," she said.
Hoskins said she didn't ask about the injection, but Bonds volunteered that it was "a little something, something for when I go on the road. You can't detect it. You can't catch it."
Bonds is charged with four counts of making false statements and obstruction of justice for telling a federal grand jury in 2003 that Anderson never provided him with steroids and human growth hormone, and that only physicians injected him.
Wearing a boyish shirt and purple necktie, her long, braided hair pulled back, Hoskins accused her brother - former Bonds' business partner Steve Hoskins - of telling her story to federal prosecutors, causing her to have to testify against Bonds.
"He threw me under the bus," she said.
In his last question to her, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Parrella asked Hoskins: "Are you testifying here just to back your brother up?"
"Absolutely not," she said before adding, with tears dripping down her face and voice breaking up, "I was put in the middle of it."
Dr. Don Catlin, former head of the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory, then testified about his 2006 discovery of Tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), the designed steroid known as "the clear." Bonds' urine sample, which was negative for steroids in baseball's 2003 survey test, was positive for THG three years later after Catlin's lab developed a test and also for the female fertility drug clomiphene.
The government says it likely will rest its case after Catlin steps down Monday and portions of Bonds' grand jury testimony are read into the record, although additional scientific witnesses could be called to support Catlin. After that, the defense can start presenting witness.
Earlier Thursday, Bonds' physician Dr. Arthur Ting contradicted the testimony of Steve Hoskins, who told the jury last week that he had as many as 50 discussions about Bonds' alleged steroid use with Ting. Hoskins also testified that Ting told him Bonds' 1999 elbow injury, which required surgery, was caused by taking steroids.
But Ting repeatedly denied Hoskins' accounts under cross-examination from defense lawyer Cristina Arguedas.
"Did you emerge from the surgery and say to Stevie Hoskins in April 1999 that was an injury caused by steroids?" she asked.
"No," he answered.
"Did Stevie consult with you about specific steroids like Winstrol and Deca?"
"No," he responded.
"Did Stevie call you on the telephone, describe steroids for you, tell you to go check them out and then tell you to call him back when you could describe the side effects of specific steroids?"
"Never," he said.
Later, the lawyers on both sides seemed surprised that Ting's story conflicted so sharply with that of Hoskins.
During a break outside the presence of the jury, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nedrow acknowledged to U.S. District Judge Susan Illston that there were inconsistencies between the testimony of Ting and Hoskins, who the prosecutor also conceded had been "impeached heavily."
Arguedas complained to the judge that the government had an obligation to disclose testimony from Ting that would be beneficial to Bonds long before the trial, citing a meeting Ting had with prosecutors before he testified to a grand jury in 2006.
"If this government doesn't recognize that, then they have to go back to school," she said.
Nedrow said that Thursday was the first time he heard Ting contradict Hoskins so heavily.
Illston is considering Arguedas' request to hold an evidentiary hearing to determine if any government official had details of Ting's testimony and, if so, why it wasn't disclosed to Bonds' attorneys. Nedrow claims it wasn't a substantive meeting and prosecutors have been unable to find notes from it.
Ting, an orthopedic surgeon who has operated on Bonds eight times, also testified that he prescribed corticosteroids - which are not muscle-building like anabolic steroids - to ease swelling after surgery. Ting said those type of steroids have side effects that are similar to performance-enhancing steroids - acne, weight gain, mood swings and loss of libido.
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