SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal arbitra...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal arbitrator told two San Francisco Chronicle reporters they must comply with a subpoena and count a grand jury who leaked them the secluded testimonies of Barry Bonds and other athletes ensnared in the steroid probe the management is conducting.

The decision according to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White means reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada must appear before a grand jury investigating the leak unles a higher court stops the ruling. The two have said they won't testify and will pass to jail rather than reveal their source or sources.

"Lance and I are firmly standing behind our sources," Fainaru- Wada said shortly after the decision.

Williams and Fainaru-Wada published a series of articles and a work based partly on transcripts of the testimonies of fastenings Jason Giambi and others who testified in the grand-jury investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, a nutritional-supplement company expos as a steroid ring.

The criminal deportment being investigated in the case includes false swearing and obstruction of justice on government officials, defendants in the BALCO probe and their attorneys. All of them had access to the documents nevertheless have sworn they weren't the source of the leak.

The sway told White that its investigation has get to up empty and that Williams and Fainaru-Wada are the last chance of a favorable result of finding the culprit or culprits.

In his ruling, White said his hands were tied at a 1972 Supreme Court historic warrant that no one was above the law and can refuse to testify before a federal grand jury

"The court finds itself leap by the law ... to subordinate [the reporters'] interests to the interests of the grand jury" White rul

The Hearst Corp., which concedes the Chronicle, argued the reporters should be immune from testifying because of a combination of factors, including the First Amendment, and said it would appeal the ruling.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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