Barry Bonds’ personal trainer was ordered released from prison on Friday after being behind bars for more than two weeks for refusing to testify in the famed slugger’s perjury trial.
The order came about two hours after a federal jury began deliberating the fate of the US home run king, who is charged with lying to a grand jury investigating steroids in 2003.
Trainer Greg Anderson has consistently refused to testify about Bonds and steroids throughout the government’s investigation, and as a result has spent more than a year in total in federal prison.
His latest spell in jail began on March 22, as Bonds’ trial was getting underway.
During six hours of deliberations on Friday, the jury of eight women and four men requested to review two key pieces of evidence.
The first was a locker room recording of Anderson discussing Bonds and steroids with Bonds’ ex-business manager.
In the tape, Anderson warns in a hushed voice about the dangers of repeated injections in the same spot.
“Is that why Barry didn’t just shoot it into his butt all the time?” the ex-business manager, Steve Hoskins, asks.
“Oh no, I never — I never just go there,” Anderson replies. “I move it all over the place.”
Jurors listened intently as the tape was played back in court, with one woman taking notes.
Jurors also wanted to review the entire testimony of Kathy Hoskins, Bonds’ former personal shopper and the only witness to say she saw Anderson inject Bonds.
The jurors were released on Friday evening for the weekend and will return to continue deliberating tomorrow.
Bonds is charged with three counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice in connection with his 2003 grand jury testimony.
The government says the US home run king lied when he denied knowingly using steroids and human growth hormone, and when he said Anderson had never injected him.
If jurors choose to believe Kathy Hoskins’ testimony, they will have to find Bonds guilty of lying about the injection.
Defense lawyers have sought to discredit Kathy Hoskins by saying she plotted against Bonds with her brother, the former business manager, after he had a bitter falling out with the former San Francisco Giants star.
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