Slugger Barry Bonds may not have hit a home run in court today, but he hit at least a single or two.
By Lance Williams
Chronicle Staff Writer
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge dismissed three perjury charges against Barry Bonds today and ordered prosecutors to file a new indictment to correct legal errors, but rejected a defense request to drop several other counts against the former Giants slugger.
The decision increases the likelihood that Bonds, 44, will go to trial as scheduled March 2.
In an order filed this morning in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Judge Susan Illston let stand most of the charges facing Bonds, who is accused of lying to a grand jury in 2003 about whether he had knowingly used steroids.
Bonds’ lawyers had asked the judge to dismiss 10 of the 15 counts of perjury and obstruction of justice contained in an indictment handed up in May. They had argued that Bonds was asked “fundamentally ambiguous” questions when he testified before the grand jury that investigated steroid dealing at BALCO, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, in Burlingame. They also said the indictment was fraught with legal problems.
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