Judge bars three drug tests, other key evidence in Bonds case

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge ruled late Thursday that prosecutors cannot use three positive steroid tests and other key evidence in Barry Bonds' trial next month.

The decision is a setback for the government in its five-year pursuit of Bonds, who has pleaded not guilty to lying to a grand jury on Dec. 4, 2003, when he denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said the test results -- urine samples that are positive for steroids -- are inadmissible because prosecutors can't prove conclusively that they belong to Bonds. The judge also barred prosecutors from showing jurors so-called doping calendars that Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, allegedly maintained for the slugger.

The judge said for prosecutors to introduce such evidence, they need direct testimony from Anderson. Illston said Feb. 5 she was leaning toward that ruling.

Prosecutors couldn't immediately be reached to determine whether they planned an appeal, which would delay the start of the scheduled March 2 trial.

Prosecutors allege Anderson collected the urine samples and delivered them for testing to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative.

Anderson's attorney said the trainer will refuse to testify at Bonds' trial even though he's likely to be sent to jail for contempt of court.

He already served a year in prison for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating Bonds and his use of performance-enhancing drugs.

During a September 2003 raid, federal investigators seized the positive test results that they allege belong to Bonds along with 21 other blood and urine samples that tested negative.

Prosecutors wanted to use all the tests to show that Bonds was a knowledgeable steroids consumer because he was a frequent customer of BALCO, the center of a massive sports doping ring.

But the judge said that without Anderson's testimony, the tests could not be introduced at Bonds' trial, scheduled to start March 2. Anderson is alleged to have delivered Bonds' blood samples to BALCO after the slugger's personal surgeon, Dr. Arthur Ting, drew the samples.

Prosecutors said the three key tests show positive results in 2000 and 2001 for the steroids nandrolone and methenolone. The samples themselves do not identify the source, but prosecutors said business records seized in the BALCO raid tie Bonds to the positive tests.

Prosecutors had hoped to present the positive tests to the jury by having BALCO's former vice president, James Valente, testify that when Anderson handed him the urine samples, the trainer said they belonged to Bonds.