The United States government has spent $55 million dollars on the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) anabolic steroid scandal that has focused its attention on professional athletes who used performance-enhancing drugs. Prosecutors have obtained convictions for many players involved in the scandal but have very little to show for their considerable efforts and expenses in terms of actual jail time. 

The ultimate prize in the government’s BALCO investigation would be the successful conviction and incarceration of MLB home run king Barry Bonds; however, legal experts doubt that Barry Bonds will spend a single day in jail based on the probationary sentences given to Tammy Thomas and Trevor Graham. Some doubt that Bonds will be convicted given the extremely weak evidence in the perjury case (”This much is Clear: Bonds getting raw deal,” January 21).

Basically, the government has portrayed Bonds as a steroid cheat and someone who lied about using the Clear and is prosecuting Bonds for that lie. But if the Clear wasn’t a steroid, then when Bonds testified he wasn’t knowingly using steroids, he was telling the truth.

This isn’t just a technicality. This is a major front falling in the government’s case: that Bonds lied about using steroids. It appears he didn’t.

The biggest issue is the government itself. They apparently knew that the Clear wasn’t technically categorized as a steroid and still pursued a perjury case against Bonds anyway.

If all of this is accurate it’s a gross abuse of power. It means the government is simply using Bonds’ notoriety — and infamy — to make an example of him.

They want to teach future athletes a lesson: use steroids and you’ll end up like Bonds. They’re doing this by any means necessary. This isn’t how the government should behave, no matter how unlikable the target.

Barry Bonds is scheduled to stand trial on perjury and obstruction of justice charges revolving around statements on his own use of anabolic steroids on March 2, 2009.