• February 11, 2011, 2:04 PM ET

With Trial Looming, Feds Streamline Charges Against Bonds

By Ashby Jones

The most interesting thing to us about the Barry Bonds news out Thursday isn’t the news itself, that federal prosecutors cut the number of felony charges against the former slugger from 11 to five.
Bonds has pleaded not guilty.
Frankly, we were most surprised by the realization that, yes, it looks like this prosecution is actually going to trial next month.
Why does this surprise us? Because we’d mostly forgotten about the whole saga. The case — a perjury prosecution — is heading into its fourth year. (The initial indictment against Bonds came down in 2007, back when he was still posting sick numbers for the San Francisco Giants.)
Since that time, Barry Bonds has melted almost completely out of the public consciousness.
This strikes us as not such good news for the prosecution. Once upon a time, the Bonds case felt like something larger than a simple perjury inquiry. It felt like the federal government giving payback for all those baseball fans who felt duped, misled, cheated after revelations of widespread drug use.
(After all, Bonds was the easiest target for fans’ anger. Fans were angry for his breaking the single-season home-run record while, it was widely suspected, he was on performance-enhancing drugs. They were angry for not coming clean, the way Jason Giambi did. They were angry for his generally being such an ill-tempered soul.)
While that anger hasn’t dissipated entirely, it’s a dim ember compared to the inferno it was for most of the last decade. As a result, the case feels less a symbol of something larger and more what it actually is — a perjury prosecution.
Of course, perjury under oath is a federal crime — and prosecutors have every right to go after Bonds for it. But prosecutions brought on perjury grounds, without more, don’t happen every day. We’ve got to wonder whether it’s all worth it.
Plus, prosecutors haven’t exactly helped themselves along the way. As the above-linked ESPN story points out, the indictment unsealed Thursday is the fourth version of the charges against Bonds.
The new document reflects the hit the government’s case took when Bonds’s personal trainer, Greg Anderson, made clear his willingness to go to jail rather than testify against Bonds.
Prosecutors on Thursday also removed from the indictment perjury charges that relied on dates found on so-called doping calendars in Anderson’s apartment that prosecutors allege show Bonds’ drug regimen.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ruled those documents inadmissible at trial because of Anderson’s refusal to authenticate them on the witness stand.
A hearing is scheduled for Friday on whether the jury should hear a secret tape recording made between Bonds’ former business partner Steve Hoskins and Anderson allegedly discussing Bonds’ steroid use. The judge has excused Bonds from attending the hearing.
A ruling for Bonds would be yet another blow to the prosecution.