Baseball Musings: The Affair of the Affair

March 20, 2005

The Affair of the Affair

I don't know who the San Francisco Chronicle has as their grand jury source, but I hope he/she is getting a lot of money. They have the most devestating article on Bonds I've seen yet.

Prosecutors in the BALCO steroids conspiracy case subpoenaed a former girlfriend of Barry Bonds to testify before a federal grand jury in San Francisco last week, questioning her about the Giants star's finances and whether he used steroids, The Chronicle has learned.
Kimberly Bell, 35, a graphic artist from San Jose who says she dated Bonds from 1994 to 2003, told the grand jury Thursday that in 2000, the left fielder confided to her that he had begun using steroids, according to two sources familiar with an account of her testimony.

Bell also testified that in 2001, Bonds had given her $80,000 in cash -- earned, she claimed, from his sale of autographed baseballs and other memorabilia -- to make the down payment on a house for her in Scottsdale, Ariz., near the Giants' spring training facility, the sources said.

Bonds' attorney, Michael Rains, said the Giants star had never used banned substances and had never made big cash payments to Bell. He said he had "no grave concern, none at all," about the grand jury inquiry.

Rains is putting on a pretty good spin here. Ms. Bell was smart, and kept evidence of her affair in answering machine tapes and receipts. Her story puts Bonds in legal jeopardy in two ways:

Her testimony indicates Bonds committed perjury.
Her testimony indicates Bonds dodged paying income tax on earning from selling memorabilia.

On the second point:

In 2001, Bell said, Bonds decided he wanted her to move to Arizona and offered to buy her a home in Scottsdale and, later, pay her college tuition. At the time, Bell said, she was earning about $80,000 as a graphic artist and was reluctant to give up her job, but Bonds persuaded her to go, saying he would take care of her financially.
Bonds is paid more than $17 million per year by the Giants, but Bell said he didn't want to spend his baseball wages on the house. Instead, he said he would raise the money by selling sports memorabilia. She recalled sitting in a San Francisco hotel room for several hours watching him sign baseballs that he said would pay for the house.

Eventually, she said, he gave her the $80,000 in lots of up to $9,000, each stack of bills banded together as though they had come from the bank. She said she had used the cash as a down payment on a $207,000 home in Scottsdale.

So she was laundering money for Bonds. Bonds would get paid in cash for his autograph sessions. He'd give her $9000 to deposit. Cash deposits of $10,000 or more get reported to the IRS. Finally, IRS agent Jeff Novitzky has some justification for his role.

And finally, it show Barry Bonds to be ..., well, I can't use the term on this site.

Bell told The Chronicle she had begun dating Bonds in 1994, during his contentious divorce from his first wife, Sun. The relationship nearly foundered when Bonds married his present wife, Liz Watson, in 1998, but Bell said she resumed seeing the Giants star after he returned from his honeymoon.
"He told me what a great girlfriend I was, because I didn't complain a lot, and I did what he told me to do," she said.

Over the years, Bell said she and Bonds had spent two or three evenings per week together at his condominium or her apartment. Bonds took her to his parents' home for dinner with his late father, former Giants outfielder Bobby Bonds, and escorted her to parties.

How very Victorian. It brings to mind Alfred Doolittle's speech from Pygmalion:

PICKERING. Have you no morals, man?
DOOLITTLE [unabashed] Cant afford them, Governor. Neither could you if you was as poor as me. Not that I mean any harm, you know. But if Liza is going to have a bit out of this, why not me too?
HIGGINS [troubled] I dont know what to do, Pickering. There can be no question that as a matter of morals it's a positive crime to give this chap a farthing. And yet I feel a sort of rough justice in his claim.
DOOLITTLE, Thats it, Governor. Thats all I say. A father's heart, as it were.
PICKERING. Well, I know the feeling; but really it seems hardly right—
DOOLITTLE. Dont say that, Governor. Dont look at it that way. What am I, Governors both? I ask you, what am I? I'm one of the undeserving poor: thats what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that hes up agen middle class morality all the time. If theres anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it's always the same story: "Youre undeserving; so you cant have it." But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow's that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I dont need less than a deserving man: I need more. I dont eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I'm a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything. Therefore, I ask you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me. I'm playing straight with you. I aint pretending to be deserving. I'm undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it; and thats the truth. Will you take advantage of a man's nature to do him out of the price of his own daughter what hes brought up and fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow until shes growed big enough to be interesting to you two gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable? I put it to you; and I leave it to you.
HIGGINS [rising, and going over to Pickering] Pickering: if we were to take this man in hand for three months, he could choose between a seat in the Cabinet and a popular pulpit in Wales.

Shaw did a marvelous job here of pointing out that the morals of the very poor were pretty much the same as the very rich; neither had any. The very poor couldn't afford them; the very rich could pay for them to be dismissed. Barry Bonds may find out that sometimes that latter statement is not true.

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Posted by David Pinto at 09:50 AM | Cheating | TrackBack (1)

Comments

I wonder if they'll bring tax evasion charges against Barry before or after he breaks the HR record. I'm guessing that, as David points out, his famousness will allow him to continue to play ball, and probably avoid any jailtime whatsoever. A pity.

Posted by: sabernar at March 20, 2005 11:32 AM

I'm not sure how wonderful the testimony of a scorned, ex-girlfriend is. :)

Isn't this the same gal (or one of the many) who have sued Barry?

Posted by: reedster at March 20, 2005 01:22 PM

David-

This is by far your worst post ever. She's a grand jury witness...by definition, she's not been cross-examined by anyone. You put great weight in the tape recordings, but the Chronicle story doesn't say anything about the contents of those recordings. I doubt that Barry was talking about steroid use in his phone messages.

Bonds, through his attorney, has never denied a relationship with this woman. And sure, it's an immoral relationship. But when an ex-girlfriend who admits that she had dashed financial expectations from her ex comes forward with "Barry told me he used steroids" testimony, perhaps we should wait just a bit before crediting her statements?

Posted by: Tim Schultz at March 20, 2005 01:33 PM

Then again, you can look at it this way: a guy who goes to be with his mistress right after his honeymoon - if he's not honest with his wife, do you really think he's honest with reporters and us fans?

Posted by: sabernar at March 20, 2005 03:45 PM

well,

IF it's true AND he didn't pay tax, then they can fer SHER get him for tax crime.

but knowing grrrls like i do, women who think they should be getting money out of a man who won't give them what they want can be REAL, uh, mean.

and what she said is NOT under oath, either...

lisa

Posted by: lisa gray at March 20, 2005 11:22 PM

Your speculation is rather poor.

Nowhere did that article even imply he was holding cash autograph sessions. You are reading too much into: "She recalled sitting in a San Francisco hotel room for several hours watching him sign baseballs that he said would pay for the house. Eventually, she said, he gave her the $80,000 in lots of up to $9,000, each stack of bills banded together as though they had come from the bank."
If true, he was showing her how easy it was for him to get $80,000, probably told her how much each baseball was worth. If the money had come from a bank, he had deposited it and withdrawn it. Several baseball players have been hit for memorabilia sales, I think both Mays and McCovery, but it appears in this case SHE is the one who was evading taxes, unless you consider him an employer, in which case he owes payroll tax.

In fact, it's a stretch to draw inferences of anything in this article except that there are a couple of grand jury leaks who have no fear of prosecution and an IRS agent who's taking tax money to see if he can nail Barry.

Posted by: Eddie at March 21, 2005 12:00 AM

Barry has already admitted to the grand jury that he used
steroids(unknowingly), so I don't know why there is still
discussion about it. If the grand jury is so meaningless,
Giambi & Sheffield don't seem to be getting that latitude.
If people have some financial interest in Bonds' career or
his memorabilia, I can see where they might be eager to
refute any & all hints that diminish him. There is nothing
wrong with Mr. Pinto's post. Tapes are a form of evid-
ence, much better than heresay, & have been very mean-
ingful in other venues. Bonds has shown for all the world
to see that he is a human being utterly lacking in con-
science. Any celebrity who cheats on his wife should
be prepared for the person he cheats with to try &
get money from him. It happens every day. I don't
own any of his memorabilia, so I can safely say I
can't wait until he's out of baseball.

Posted by: susan mullen at March 21, 2005 12:50 AM

The tapes are relevant (apparently) only in that they verify an affair. That's a long way from verifying that Bonds was using steroids, or hatching some "money laundering" scheme (to use David's unfortunate label). And again, the fact that he's cheated on his wife doesn't mean he's evading federal income taxes. That's quite a leap.

Posted by: Tim at March 21, 2005 09:55 AM

Hey, if we're going to start running unfaithful ballplayers out of town, I've got a list a mile long.

Posted by: ed at March 21, 2005 12:32 PM

Again, Bonds' steroid use has already been established by him in a prior grand jury (& which he says was unknow-
ing). I don't know what, if anything, is on the tapes at
this point. Even if they are all blank, there are other
sources of information for what the grand jury is deter-
mining. The idea that someone possibly cheated on his wife is more salacious & distracting than other legal problems. It may even divert attention from the big picture, which is that of a pathetic human being who doesn't deserve this much ink.

Posted by: susan mullen at March 22, 2005 01:48 AM

The idea that someone possibly cheated on his wife is more salacious & distracting than other legal problems.

Sorry to break it to you, but this is not uncommon in sports.

Posted by: ed at March 22, 2005 02:46 PM

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