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Prosecutors rework charges against Barry Bonds
Federal prosecutors have filed a new indictment against Barry Bonds, in accordance with a judge’s request.
The home-run king has been charged with 14 counts of lying to a grand jury and one count of obstruction of justice when he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs.
Bonds originally was charged with four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction last Nov. 15. But U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ordered prosecutors to rework the indictment so that each charge alleged only one lie rather than lumping several alleged lies into single counts.
“It’s exactly the same,” Golden Gate University law professor Peter Keane said. “It’s two ways of saying it’s lying, and there’s really no substantial difference between what he was charged with then and what he is charged with now.”
The new indictment doesn’t add any new alleged lies.
The case of Bonds is still built on whether he lied when he told the grand jury that his personal trainer, Greg Anderson, never supplied him with steroids and human grown hormone.
Bonds’ next hearing already had been scheduled for June 6 before the new indictment was unsealed. It is unclear whether Bonds will be expected to enter a plea then.