Report: Bonds testified to grand jury he unknowingly used steroids

SAN FRANCISCO — Barry Bonds testified to a grand jury that he used a clear substance and a cream given to him by a trainer who was indicted in a steroid-distribution ring, but said he didn't know they were steroids, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday.

Bonds told the federal grand jury last year that Greg Anderson, his personal trainer, told him the substances he used in 2003 were the nutritional supplement flaxseed oil and a rubbing balm for arthritis, according to a transcript of his testimony reviewed by the Chronicle.

The substances Bonds described were similar to ones known as "the clear" and "the cream," two steroids from the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative at the center of the steroid scandal.

Bonds' attorney, Michael Rains, said the leak of grand jury testimony was an attempt to smear his client. Grand jury transcripts are sealed and the Chronicle did not say who showed them the documents.

"My view has always been this case has been the U.S. vs. Bonds, and I think the government has moved in certain ways in a concerted effort to indict my client," Rains told the newspaper. "And I think their failure to indict him has resulted in their attempts to smear him publicly."

Rains did not immediately comment to The Associated Press, but his office said Friday that he would make a statement later in the day. Bonds' agent, Scott Boras, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

Giants spokesman Blake Rhodes said the team wouldn't comment and directed all questions to the commissioner's office.

Tony Serra, Anderson's lawyer, said Anderson "never knowingly provided illegal substances to anyone."

The revelation of Bonds' grand jury testimony was one of a series of developments in the BALCO probe, which led to indictments against four men in February.

ABC News and ESPN the Magazine released excerpts of interviews with BALCO founder Victor Conte, one of those charged in the case, in which he says he watched Olympic track star Marion Jones inject herself in the leg with human growth hormone. Jones' attorneys denied she ever used performance-enhancing drugs. Conte's interview with ABC's "20/20" program was to air Friday night.

And sprinter Kelli White, who has been banned from track for two years after admitting use of several banned substances, broke down and cried Thursday as she recounted in an interview the first time she used THG, a once-undetectable steroid that BALCO is accused of providing to elite athletes. White's comments appeared in the Chronicle, Los Angeles Times and USA Today.