Prosecutors seeking prison sentence for Barry Bonds

Federal prosecutors are looking to have legendary baseball player Barry Bonds spend the next few years in prison, the Associated Press reports.

Bonds’ defense lawyers argued that the judge should accept the probate office’s recommendation that the former baseball player be sentenced to only probation, but the prosecutors in the case want Bonds to spend 15 months in prison.

Bonds was found guilty in April of obstructing the federal grand jury’s investigation into illegal steroid usage by professional baseball players.

“Because Bonds’s efforts were a corrupt, intentional effort to interfere with that mission, a sentence of 15 months imprisonment is appropriate,” the prosecution said in its memo to a judge.

“Whether his purpose was to protect his drug suppliers or his own reputation, Bonds’s pre-testimony efforts to sway the testimony of Giants trainer Stan Conte established that he approached his grand jury testimony with a plan,” the prosecution said. “That plan was to evade telling the truth to the grand jury through any means possible, whether through lies, half-truths, non-sequiturs, or simply bluffing his way through the testimony.”

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston is expected to sentence Bonds on December 16.

[Image credit: Jeff Chiu/AP]