Baseball slugger Barry Bonds appeared in U.S. District Court this morning in San Francisco and plead not guilty to charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.  The charges stem from testimony Bonds gave before a grand jury investigating the Bay Area Lab Cooperative, a lab that designed and distributed illegal steroids.

The most surprising element of the government’s case against Barry Bonds is the mention that Bonds had failed a drug test back in 2000 while he was a client of disgraced, convicted drug-trafficker Victor Conte and his BALCO Labs. Now that Bonds is facing charges from the feds, his lawyers, legal experts and doping authorities are questioning the veracity and reliability of this drug test, which was conducted outside the workplace.

The theory follows along the lines that – supposedly - without the rigid constraints that would be in place for an official league or athletic organization authorized drug test, any test conducted by BALCO would be less than reliable because a formal, verifiable chain of custody wasn’t in place. For those who are unfamiliar with this drug test, Bonds was tested while working with BALCO and his sample, and the samples of all the other BALCO drug cheats, were sent to Quest Diagnostics laboratory for analysis.

In a story that appears on ESPN.com written by investigative reporter Michael Fish, Victor Conte the felon weighed in on the tests that BALCO ran for their clients.

According to Conte the tests were done for "research purposes only. "It had to do with determining whether there were positive test results that would come about from using certain substances," Conte said of the tests, according to Fish's story. "It had to do with, in some cases, determining whether or not things people were buying on the black market were the real deal or not. Some of this stuff on the market is phony. Another is to screen the Olympic-caliber athletes to make sure they weren't taking any tainted supplements."

If you are in a kind mood you could say that this statement is disingenuous. The “certain substances” the BALCO drug cheats were being tested for were the illegal performance-enhancing drugs that were part of the BALCO regimen. For Conte to claim that his criminal organization was concerned with tainted or ersatz over-the-counter supplements is insulting, and illustrates the contempt that Conte has for the media and general public. This is pure nonsense.

Next up is this load of baloney.

Conte goes on to say Bonds' testing "was just a part of an overall comprehensive package that went on. (BALCO VP and Conte partner) Jim Valente went in there on a Saturday and met with a whole entourage of people, including Dr.Ting (Bonds' personal physician) and Greg (Anderson, Bonds' personal trainer). And I am the one that set up all these, so we just pretty much had a whole package of tests that went out. None of them had chain of custody. Not a single one."

The phrase “overall comprehensive package” is just a euphemism for “making sure our athletes wouldn’t get caught by formal drug tests.” As an aside, what is particularly amusing is that Conte speaks as if he was a legitimate businessman that somehow got caught up in a little bit of inadvertent illegality. There’s also the fact that he and others associated with BALCO are on record as admitting these tests were designed to make sure the athletes didn’t get caught. Keep in mind Valente and Anderson were the other key members in the BALCO criminal drug organization.

The assertion that the tests performed under the auspices of BALCO by Quest Laboratories weren’t important, weren’t done properly and couldn’t be reliable due to a lack of chain of custody is ludicrous. The case can be made that the tests BALCO ran were MORE important to the athletes and to BALCO precisely because these tests were responsible for helping them avoid detection, thus allowing their conspiracy to be successful.

The entire BALCO Labs criminal enterprise that was run by Conte, Valente, Anderson and the athletes who were their clients needed the tests that were being conducted by Quest Labs to be accurate and reliable. BALCO’s existence and ability to successfully operate under the radar relied upon bona fide feedback from Quest, and to confirm that the doping regimen wouldn’t result in BALCO clients testing positive.

For Conte to assert that the Quest tests weren’t important and were done for “research purposes only” is an effort in revisionist history writing and an attempt to cloud the issue, and an attempt to damage the government’s case against Bonds.

People need to remember throughout this case that BALCO Labs' sole concern was to help athletes cheat via the design, manufacture and distribution of illegal performance-enhancing drugs, and BALCO’s existence and success depending upon making sure that their clients wouldn’t get caught. Any statements made by Conte, Anderson or any other person involved with BALCO should be viewed in this light.

Reliable drug tests were necessary for BALCO to be successful. Keep this fact in mind when listening to the protestations of Bonds, his lawyers and his co-conspirators.