SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Two San Francisco Chronicle reporters were sentenced to a maximum 18 months in prison Thursday, pending an appeal, for refusing to testify about who leaked them secret grand jury testimony from Barry Bonds and other elite athletes. Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada published a series of articles and a book based partly on the leaked transcripts of the testimony of Bonds, Jason Giambi and others before a grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, a Burlingame-based nutritional supplement company exposed as a steroid ring two years ago.
Federal prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White to send the pair to prison for the full term of the grand jury investigating the leak, or until they agree to testify. Both sides have agreed to stay the ruling by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White pending an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
