The heat is being turned up on Barry Bonds as his perjury trial approaches.
Citing a person who has reviewed the evidence in the case, The New York Times reported on Wednesday that authorities detected anabolic steroids in urine samples linked to Bonds that they gathered in their investigation.
Bonds testified to a federal grand jury in 2003 that he used the "cream" and the "clear" but did not know that they were performance-enhancing drugs. The urine samples could prove the existence of other steroids in his body.
During that testimony, Bonds was asked if he ever took steroids, and he answered no. The government alleges that Bonds lied under oath. His perjury trial is scheduled to begin March 2.
Meanwhile, federal authorities have taken another avenue in their pursuit of Bonds.
Agents raided the home of the mother-in-law of Bonds' personal trainer Greg Anderson.
Madeleine Gestas is the target of a tax investigation that Anderson's lawyer says is aimed at pressuring the trainer to testify at Bonds' upcoming trial on charges on lying to a grand jury.
Mark Geragos, a lawyer for Anderson, said he believes the raid Wednesday is in response to his refusal to tell prosecutors whether Anderson would testify.
The attorney said some 20 FBI and IRS agents showed up at the Redwood City, Calif., home of Madeleine Gestas armed with a search warrant and seized miscellaneous documents.
"Even the mafia spares the women and children," Geragos said.
Gestas, 60, has been the subject of a tax probe, but Geragos described the raid as part of an ongoing effort by the federal government to intimidate Anderson and coerce him to cooperate in the government's case against Bonds.
"They trashed the place and took all kinds of stuff," he said. "The execution was illegal and a grotesque example of bullying."
Arlette Lee, a spokeswoman for the IRS, acknowledged agents had been at Gestas' home but declined comment on the nature of the activity.
Last June, the government sent a letter to Nicole Gestas, a local fitness trainer who married Anderson in the summer of 2007, notifying her that she was the target of a federal conspiracy investigation.
"How much more obvious can they get?" said Paula Canny, an attorney who worked the BALCO case and a close friend of Anderson.
Geragos said he received a letter on Monday from federal prosecutors wanting to know if Anderson is going to testify in the Bonds trial.
"They can't demand that. It's sheer bullying," Geragos said.
Anderson served two terms in federal prison for refusing to appear in front of separate grand juries during the government's investigation of Bonds. Federal prosecutors believe Anderson can testify, among other things, that calendars and diary entries that document steroid use by a "BB" in fact refer to Bonds.
Anderson initially served 15 days in prison in July 2006, and then again from Aug. 28, 2006, until Nov. 15, 2007, in a federal correctional institute in Dublin, Calif. He also served three months in federal prison earlier in 2006 after he pleaded guilty in the BALCO steroid scandal.
Geragos has insisted for some time that Anderson will never testify against Bonds.
"My client is never going to speak," he told ESPN.com in March of 2007.
Geragos reiterated that point to The Times, saying, "The government is obsessed with trying to get Greg to testify about Barry, but he never will."
Geragos said Anderson received a government subpoena last week demanding his testimony at trial. If he refuses to testify, he could be sent to prison again.
Information from ESPN.com investigative reporters Mike Fish, T.J. Quinn and Mark Fainaru-Wada and The Associated Press was used in this report.