U.S. District Judge Susan Illston immediately delayed imposing the sentence while Bonds appeals his obstruction of justice conviction. The former baseball star was found guilty in April not of using steroids, but of misleading grand jurors.
Even without prison time, the case has left its mark on the seven-time National League MVP. His 762 career home runs, and 73 homers in 2001, may forever be seen as tainted records, and his ticket to baseball's Hall of Fame is in doubt.
Bonds declined to speak in court. Well-wishers hugged the 47-year-old in the hallway courtroom after the hearing was over, and a smattering of fans cheered him as he left the courthouse. It was a marked departure from his initial court appearance four years ago, when guards had to clear a path for Bonds to get through dozens of onlookers to his SUV.
"Whatever he did or didn't do, we all lie," said Esther Picazo, a fan outside the courthouse. "We all make mistakes. But I don't think he should've gotten any kind of punishment at all."
Bonds was sentenced to two years of probation, 250 hours of community service, a $4,000 fine and 30 days of home confinement. It will take time to determine whether he serves any of it; his appellate specialist, Dennis Riordan, estimated it would take nearly a year and a half for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rule.
Prosecutors charged Bonds with three counts of perjury in addition to obstruction of justice for his 2003 testimony to a grand jury investigating BALCO, the Burlingame-based Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, which was selling banned steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs to the nation's top athletes. Bonds testified he had not knowingly taken performance-enhancing drugs.
After a 12-day trial in April, jurors deadlocked on the perjury charges and convicted Bonds of obstruction on the grounds that he gave a rambling, evasive answer to a question.
Bonds' lawyers are appealing that conviction, which they estimated could take 17 months. If the appeal fails, Bonds would then start serving his sentence.
Parrella told the court that Bonds' testimony before the grand jury reflected a long pattern of deceit.
"The defendant lived basically a double life for decades before this," the prosecutor said. "He was well-versed in misleading people. He had mistresses throughout his entire married life, through two marriages."
When Illston reminded Parrella that Bonds wasn't convicted of adultery, someone in the courtroom cheered.
Parrella also argued that Bonds planned to give false testimony and has shown no remorse.
"This was not a spur-of-the-moment thing where Bonds got a subpoena on Monday, showed up on Tuesday and told an ill advised story…" Parrella said. "This a story he told for decades before he went into the grand jury."
Bonds' lawyers said no court has ever upheld an obstruction conviction based on the kinds of testimony Bonds gave, but Parrella said he was confident the conviction would stand.
Prosecutors agreed "without prejudice" to dismiss the deadlocked counts, which reserved the government's right to charge Bonds again for the same offenses. Legal analysts said that was a face-saving gesture and predicted confidently that Bonds would never be recharged on those counts.
University of San Francisco law professor Robert Talbot, who followed the case, said it was "standard" to postpone enforcing a sentence pending an appeal if the defendant was neither a danger nor a flight risk.
Although Bonds got less home detention time than that given to others convicted of lying in the doping probe, the community service would probably "do a lot of good" and the sentence "made sense," Talbot said.
But he said he was struck by the disparity between Bonds' sentence and the year Greg Anderson, Bonds' former trainer, served in federal prison for refusing to testify against the home run king.
Another baseball legend, pitcher Roger Clemens, will go to trial in April on perjury charges involving sports doping. Clemens' first trial ended after only two days when prosecutors introduced banned evidence.
The jury, considered favorable to the defense, had to be dismissed. A judge in the case later ruled the prosecution's error had been unintentional.
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