When she first considered the matter yesterday, Judge Susan Ilston strongly suggested that the newly-discovered tape recording of Dr. Arthur Ting and Steven Hoskins, allegedly discussing Barry Bonds’ steroids use, would not be admitted. Indeed, she characterized the tape as ”almost entirely inadmissible or irrelevant.”
It should come as no surprise, then, that Judge Ilston has excluded the tape from evidence.
Where this leaves us: the jury heard (a) the prosecution’s star witness say that he and Dr. Ting discussed Bonds’ steroids use “more than 50 times”; and (b) Dr. Ting — also a prosecution witness — testify that, no, they never discussed it at all. Without anything (such as the tape) undercutting Ting, the prosecution’s star witnesses’ credibility is pretty severely damaged, it seems to me. After all, the defense’s take on Hoskins is that he was scorned by Bonds and is out to get him. Now it looks like his side of the story — that he was truly concerned for Bonds’ health — was a lie. Not good for Hoskins.
As things stand now, Bonds still seems to be on the hook for the charge related to lying about whether or not he had ever been injected with anything by Greg Anderson, but the charges relating to him lying about knowingly taking steroids have taken a mighty blow, it seems.
The prosecution seemed to appreciate that and stopped digging the hole it had made for itself. Following the judge’s ruling and the reading of Bonds’ grand jury testimony, the prosecution rested.
