SAN FRANCISCO – Barry Bonds' lawyers are still working to persuade a federal judge in San Francisco to throw out the home run king's obstruction of justice conviction or grant him a new trial.
Bonds' legal team argued in court papers filed Monday that federal prosecutors were grasping at straws and had invented new legal theories to sustain the verdict against the baseball great.
The papers came in response to a filing in which government lawyers urged U.S. District Judge Susan Illston to honor a jury's conclusion that Bonds gave a deliberately rambling answer when asked if his trainer ever gave him injectable substances.
Bonds' attorneys have asked Illston to set aside the obstruction verdict, arguing that the government has not shown "that speaking unintelligibly, or rambling, is a federal offense."
The judge has scheduled an Aug. 26 hearing to consider the request.
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