Prosecutors Appear to Veer Past Justice to Vendetta
Prosecuting Barry Bonds lands at the bottom of my list of things our government should do. It's something we need about as much as a congressional proclamation that this is National Ryan Seacrest Day.
Unearth the terrorist cells that are plotting to kill more Americans. Go after corporate crooks who cost employees their jobs and retirement savings. Just don't waste "millions of dollars" (in the estimation of Bonds' attorney Laura Enos) going after a baseball player because he isn't a nice guy.
He isn't a danger to me or you. Bonds doesn't pose a threat to anything except Hank Aaron's home run record. But federal prosecutors are pushing ahead, with speculation that Bonds could be indicted this week on charges of tax evasion for allegedly not reporting income from memorabilia sales and perjury for allegedly lying about steroid use.
"The idea that you prosecute an athlete for signing autographs and not paying taxes on it, it's like prosecuting a waiter for not paying taxes on tips," said Stuart Hanlon, a San Francisco-based lawyer. "My feeling is that it's a vindictive prosecution and it's biased. It makes no sense from a legal perspective. It's not about stopping steroids. It's not about stopping perjury.
"Steroids -- I think it's clear that the young people are beginning to understand the dangers. In terms of lying, perjury is perjury. It's about something else. One wonders: What is the agenda?"
Hanlon lives in a place where, he admits, "We're the only people in the world who like Barry Bonds." I live in Los Angeles and I'm a member of the media, reasons enough not to like Bonds and for him not to like me. But I'm with Hanlon.
I also don't care whether Bonds skimped on taxes. What matters to the sports world is determining what players used steroids and when, and a tax-evasion indictment wouldn't address that. I keep hearing it's analogous to sending Al Capone to jail for taxes. Capone was on the FBI's most-wanted list. Bonds hit home runs. No comparison.
This would simply be a use of public money to handle baseball's Bonds problem and make him go away.
At this point it's not so much justice as justification for time and money spent. As Enos told the Associated Press, "After four years of investigation and the expenditure of millions of dollars, I suppose they are motivated to try to get an indictment."
