Bonds, Giants finalize $15.8M deal after long physical

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Barry Bonds' former mistress, at the center of the government's perjury investigation of the slugger, said Monday she will discuss the couple's relationship in the November issue of Playboy magazine.

The Playboy article, accompanied by a nude pictorial of Kimberly Bell, is scheduled to hit newsstands Oct. 1. The 37-year-old Bell said the article will cover details of her relationship with Bonds that she told a grand jury investigating the perjury allegations in 2005.

"The opportunity was there, and I took it," she told The Associated Press in a phone interview Monday. The photo shoot "was one of the most liberating experiences of my life."

Bell's decision to pose for Playboy was first reported by The New York Times on its Web site Monday night.

She testified before the grand jury that Bonds once told her of his steroid use in 2000 and that he implied he started taking the performance enhancing drugs in response to Mark McGwire's pursuit of the single season home run record in 1998.

"He was very envious of Mark McGwire," she said from her San Jose home. "He never said that was the reason, but I know it was."

Bell testified about that conversation as well her relationship with Bonds, which lasted from 1993 to 2003. She also said Bonds gave her $80,000 in cash to buy a house, the proceeds of which allegedly came from a paid autograph session that authorities also are investigating as going unreported to the Internal Revenue Service.

Bonds' lawyer, Michael Rains, could not be reached for comment late Monday.

The term of the grand jury investigating Bonds' steroids testimony appears to have been extended because the San Francisco Giants left fielder's personal trainer remains jailed. Greg Anderson was to be released last Thursday, the end of the grand jury's term, unless the term was extended.

The U.S Attorney's office has declined to discuss the grand jury proceedings. But one of Anderson's lawyers, Paula Canny, believes the term was extended.

"Greg's still not out," she said.

Bell said she has not been called before the grand jury again, but declined to say if she has spoken with federal investigators since.

Bell's appearance in the magazine can't help the government's case against her former lover.

Defense lawyers are widely expected to argue that Bell was a woman scorned because of Bonds' decision to marry another woman during their relationship. Her appearance on Playboy may only add fuel to the defense's case.

Bell said the photo shoot boosted her confidence. She declined to say how much Playboy was paying her.

"If I had more self-esteem when I was younger," she said, "I wouldn't have been caught up with such a rotten man."

"Say what you want about Bonds, but he's not a murderer, or even an attempted murderer," San Francisco Chronicle reporter and co-author of Game Of Shadows Lance Williams wrote in Sunday's edition. "The only thing I believe Bonds did was inject himself with Winstrol, Deca-Durabolin, insulin, testosterone, synthetic testosterone, testosterone decanoate, human growth hormones, Norbolethone, Trenbolone, Clomid, and possibly commercial racehorse laxatives, all in order to make himself a better athlete. Not to allow himself to gut-shoot a gentleman's club bouncer, but to become a better athlete. A better athlete…it doesn't seem so bad when you think about it like that."

The heat is being turned up on Barry Bonds as his perjury trial approaches.


Citing a person who has reviewed the evidence in the case, the New York Times reported on Wednesday that authorities detected anabolic steroids in urine samples linked to Bonds that they gathered in their investigation.

Bonds testified to a federal grand jury in 2003 that he used the "cream" and the "clear" but did not know that they were performance-enhancing drugs. The urine samples could prove the existence of other steroids in his body.

During that testimony, Bonds was asked if he ever took steroids, and he answered no. The government alleges that Bonds lied under oath. His perjury trial is scheduled to begin March 2.

Meanwhile, federal authorities have taken another avenue in their pursuit of Bonds.

Agents raided the home of the mother-in-law of Bonds' personal trainer Greg Anderson.

Madeleine Gestas is the target of a tax investigation that Anderson's lawyer says is aimed at pressuring the trainer to testify at Bonds' upcoming trial on charges on lying to a grand jury.

Mark Geragos, a lawyer for Anderson, said he believes the raid Wednesday is in response to his refusal to tell prosecutors whether Anderson would testify.

The attorney said some 20 FBI and IRS agents showed up at the Redwood City, Calif., home of Madeline Gestas armed with a search warrant and seized miscellaneous documents. Gestgas, 60, has been the subject of a tax probe, but Geragos described the raid as part of an ongoing effort by the federal government to intimidate Anderson and coerce him to cooperate in the government's case against Bonds.

"They trashed the place and took all kinds of stuff," he said. "The execution was illegal and a grotesque example of bullying."

Arlette Lee, a spokesman for the IRS, acknowledged agents had been at Gestas' home but declined comment on the nature of the activity.

Last June, the government sent a letter to Nicole Gestas, a local fitness trainer who married Anderson in the summer of 2007, notifying her that she was the target of a federal conspiracy investigation.

"How much more obvious can they get?" said Paula Canny, an attorney who worked the BALCO case and a close friend of Anderson.

Geragos said he received a letter on Monday from federal prosecutors wanting to know if Anderson is going to testify in the Bonds trial.

"They can't demand that. It's sheer bullying," Geragos said.



Anderson served two terms in federal prison for refusing to appear in front of separate grand juries during the government's investigation of Bonds. Federal prosecutors believe Anderson can testify, among other things, that calendars and diary entries that document steroid use by a "BB" is in fact Bonds.

Anderson initially served 15 days in prison in July 2006, and then again from Aug. 28, 2006, until Nov. 15, 2007, in a federal correctional institute in Dublin, Calif. He also served three months in federal prison earlier in 2006 after he pleaded guilty in the BALCO steroid scandal.

Geragos has insisted for some time that Anderson will never testify against Bonds.

"My client is never going to speak," he told ESPN.com in March of 2007.

Geragos said Anderson received a government subpoena last week demanding his testimony at trial. If he refuses to testify, he could be sent to prison again.

Former major league catcher Bobby Estalella is expected to provide significant testimony to support the government's contention that former San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds knowingly took steroids, according to a source with knowledge of the evidence.

Two sources have confirmed that Estalella has been subpoenaed to testify in Bonds' perjury trial, scheduled to start March 2 in federal court in San Francisco. Estalella is expected to provide testimony of firsthand knowledge about Bonds' alleged steroid use, ESPN has learned.

Estalella was Bonds' teammate on the Giants during the 2000 and 2001 seasons.

In his leaked testimony during the BALCO investigation, Estalella admitted to a grand jury that he had used the "cream," the "clear" and human growth hormone that were provided to him by Greg Anderson, Bonds' personal trainer.

Estalella also was named in the December 2007 Mitchell report on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, in connection with an assessment by the Los Angeles Dodgers of his value as a free agent in late October 2003. According to the Mitchell report, Ellen Harrigan, an administrator in the Dodgers' scouting department, recorded an observation by one of the participants in a meeting discussing Estalella that he was a "poster boy for the chemicals."

Prosecutors also plan to call Jason Giambi and his brother, Jeremy, as witnesses at Bonds' trial so they can testify that Anderson gave them performance-enhancing drugs, The New York Times reported on its Web site Thursday night.

The newspaper said prosecutors want to use testimony from the Giambis, teammates in Oakland from 2000-01, to show that Anderson developed doping calendars for them. Then the prosecutors could argue that Anderson made similar calendars for Bonds, the Times said, citing an unidentified person briefed on the government's evidence. The newspaper said the person spoke on condition of anonymity because he didn't want to jeopardize his access to sensitive information.

After seven years with the New York Yankees, Jason Giambi re-signed with the Oakland Athletics this offseason. Jeremy Giambi has been out of the majors since 2003.

Bonds testified in front of the BALCO grand jury in 2003 that he used the "cream" and the "clear," but didn't know they were performance-enhancing drugs. The government alleges he lied under oath, leading to the March 2 perjury trial date.

The government also has subpoenaed Anderson to testify at the trial, but Anderson's attorney, Mark Geragos, has told ESPN that Anderson will not appear or testify.

Estalella, one of several of Bonds' former teammates expected to be subpoenaed for the trial, played for six teams during his nine-year major league career from 1996 to 2004.

A federal judge unsealed hundreds of pages of court documents on Wednesday at the heart of the government's criminal case against Barry Bonds, including positive drug tests that prosecutors linked to America's home run king.

The documents also include a transcript of a taped conversation between Bonds' personal trainer and personal assistant discussing injecting the slugger, plus a list of current and former major leaguers, including Jason Giambi, who are scheduled to testify for the government at Bonds' upcoming trial.

The former San Francisco Giants star is charged with lying to a grand jury when he said he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs. His trial is scheduled for next month.

Federal prosecutors allege that Bonds used steroids, including a once undetectable designer drug.

In the court documents, prosecutors say Bonds tested positive in 2000 and 2001 for the steroids methenelone and nandrolone. Prosecutors want to use those test results to show Bonds lied when he told a grand jury in December 2003 that he never knowingly used steroids.

In addition, a government-retained scientist said he found evidence that Bonds used the designer steroid THG upon retesting a urine sample Bonds supplied as part of Major League Baseball's anonymous survey drug testing in 2003.

MLB contracted Quest Diagnostics and Comprehensive Drug Testing to carry out its anonymous drug testing in 2003. In April 2004, federal agents obtained a search warrant and seized urine samples held by Quest in Nevada and codes to match the samples from CDT in Long Beach, California.

When agents discovered a spreadsheet containing a list of all players who tested positive, they obtained a second search warrant and seized all samples. The legality of the second search remains in dispute, with three district court judges ruling for the Major League Baseball Players Association and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals holding an en-banc hearing in December on the government's appeal.