Bonds case goes to jury

SAN FRANCISCO - Making a final appeal to jurors before they decide whether Barry Bonds lied about taking steroids, defense attorney Allen Ruby offered a simple explanation Thursday for why the government has spent years pursuing the home run king: "He was Barry."

Bonds is charged with lying to a grand jury during a Dec. 4, 2003, session when he denied knowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs and said no one but his doctors gave him any injections.

Ruby told the jury during his closing argument that two prosecutors attempted to "intimidate" Bonds during that 2003 court appearance.

"The prosecutors were being very cagey," said Ruby, alleging that the government lawyers were attempting to confuse and humiliate Bonds. Ruby said the prosecutors failed - and they were angered by Bonds' demeanor.

"A lot of the venom in the government's pursuit here was because he wasn't intimidated," Ruby said. "He was not subservient. He was Barry."

Ruby said witness accounts that made it sound as if Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, may have injected him several times were simply "made up" by Bonds' enemies.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Nedrow opened his closing argument by urging the jury of eight women and four men to find Bonds guilty.

"All he had to do was tell the truth," Nedrow said. "He chose not to tell the truth, and that's why he's here."

Bonds is charged with three counts of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice. The former San Francisco Giants slugger, owner of the major-league records for home runs in a career and a season, told the grand jury in 2003 that Anderson misled him into taking designer steroids by calling them flaxseed oil and arthritis cream.