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Updated: 9:33 p.m. ET April 13, 2006
Barry Bonds apparently isn't done with grand juries just yet.
A federal grand jury has been hearing testimony for more than a month on whether Bonds committed perjury when he testified before a different grand jury in the BALCO investigation on Dec. 4, 2003, CNN reported Thursday, citing multiple unnamed sources.
Bonds, who ranks third in career home runs with 708, has repeatedly denied knowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs, reportedly saying in his grand jury testimony that he thought substances given to him by personal trainer Greg Anderson were flaxseed oil and cream.
Bonds and the other athletes were given immunity by federal prosecutors in the 2003 proceeding, provided they told the truth on the stand.
According to CNN, the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco would neither confirm nor deny that a grand jury has been hearing testimony about Bonds and the player's lawyers were unaware that a grand jury had been convened, said Harry Stern, a spokesman for his legal team.
“Game of Shadows,” a book by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters, detailed alleged extensive steroid use by Bonds and other baseball stars when it came out in March.
Bonds has sued the authors to try to block them from making any money on the book, which his attorneys say was based on illegally obtained grand jury transcripts.
In the wake of the controversy over the book, Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig appointed George Mitchell, a former U.S. Senate majority leader and federal judge, to investigate steroid use in baseball.