NEW YORK – Major League Baseball says it's not investigating Barry Bonds (search) but merely monitoring the ongoing government probe involving the San Francisco Giants slugger.
The New York Daily News, citing unidentified Major League sources, reported on Sunday that "MLB security officials are convinced that Bonds may be at risk of conviction over allegations of tax fraud, and are conducting their own probe into Bonds' relationships and activities."
"There's nothing new. There's no investigation," baseball spokesman Rich Levin (search) told The Associated press on Sunday. "Nothing has changed. We're monitoring the federal investigation, as we have from the very beginning."
Bonds' ex-girlfriend, Kimberly Bell (search), testified in March to a federal grand jury that Bonds told her in 2000 that he had begun taking steroids. The San Francisco Chronicle reported, citing two unidentified sources, that Bell also testified that Bonds gave her $80,000 in cash in 2001 in separate $9,000 payments to help her purchase a house in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Bonds testified in late 2003 before a federal grand jury in California investigating illegal steroids distribution. According to reports in The Chronicle, Bonds told the grand jury he used a clear substance and a cream given to him by his personal trainer Greg Anderson, who was indicted along with four other men in the BALCO case. Bonds said he didn't know what he was using was a steroid, the paper reported.
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