2 Reporters Get Up to 18 months for Refusing to Reveal Sources in Bonds Steroids Case
By Stuart Silverstein
Los Angeles Times—Two San Francisco Chronicle reporters were sentenced Thursday to up to 18 months in jail for refusing to reveal who gave them secret testimony on the use of steroids by baseball’s Barry Bonds and other star athletes.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White in San Francisco was immediately stayed, pending an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, enabling reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada to remain free.
Still, the decision raised the stakes in a closely watched case. It has been cast as a conflict between the 1st Amendment and reporters’ ability to gather news versus prosecutors’ interest in maintaining grand jury secrecy so that they can get reliable testimony in criminal investigations.
Williams and Fainaru-Wada were subpoenaed to a federal grand jury in May to reveal who gave them testimony by Major League Baseball players Bonds, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield in the federal probe of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO. Both reporters refused to reveal their sources, and lawyers for their newspaper have argued that forcing the journalists to do so would undermine their efforts to perform the public service of exposing wrongdoing.