Judge dismisses three charges against Bonds

SAN FRANCISCO -- Three charges against Barry Bonds were dismissed Monday by a federal judge who left intact most of the indictment alleging he lied to a grand jury when he denied knowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs.

Bonds, baseball's home run king, is scheduled for a March 2 trial. He had faced 14 counts of making false declarations to a grand jury investigating steroid use in sports and one count of obstruction of justice.

His lawyers had asked U.S. District Judge Susan Illston to dismiss 10 of the lying charges, claiming he was asked unclear questions in front of the grand jury in 2003. Illston ruled Monday to dismiss three charges and consolidate or rewrite another two.

Bonds has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Bonds' lawyer, Allen Ruby, didn't immediately comment, saying had not yet read the ruling.

Illston's action does not change the fundamentals of the case, nor would it have much of an effect on any sentence handed down, should Bonds be convicted. Legal experts say he would face up to 2 1/2 years in prison if found guilty.

Monday's ruling came after much back-and-forth over the wording of the charges in the government's indictment.

Illston threw out the original indictment filed last year because of technical errors and ordered prosecutors to refile the paperwork, which they did in May. Bonds' lawyers filed their arguments to dismiss the charges last summer, arguing that many of the allegations stemmed from ambiguous answers to prosecutors' ambiguous questions.

Illston agreed in part with their claims and dismissed two counts based on questions dealing with whether Bonds ever took steroids or received "flax seed oil stuff" because, she said, they were too vague to sustain a perjury charge.

She tossed out another count on Bonds' repeated denials he obtained human growth hormone from his athletic trainer, Greg Anderson, because it too closely mirrored another charge, she said.

The judge said two other charges duplicated each other and told prosecutors they could strike either or seek a superseding indictment in which both statements are placed in the same count.

Regarding a fifth charge, Illston also found an error, which the government claimed was typographical and agreed to fix in a new filing.