Feds To Appeal Bonds Evidence Ruling

Federal prosecutors notified the judge in the Barry Bonds’ perjury trial Friday they would appeal her decision not to allow evidence of positive drug tests to be presented to the jury.

Bonds, 44, was scheduled to go on trial in the court of U.S. District Judge Susan Illston on Monday on charges of lying to a grand jury in 2003 when he denied knowingly using steroids.

The appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could delay the trial for months.

Prosecutors are appealing a decision in which Illston last week said they could not use certain key evidence in the trial unless Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, would testify to authentic it.

The evidence includes three positive steroids tests taken in 2000 and 2001 and alleged doping calendars seized from Anderson's home in Burlingame in 2003.

In her ruling on Feb. 19, Illston turned down prosecutors' arguments that they should be able to present the evidence under a series of exceptions to evidence rules even without Anderson's testimony.

The decision to appeal came hours after Bonds' former trainer told the judge he would not testify at the home-run king's perjury trial set to begin next week in a San Francisco courtroom.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston told Greg Anderson if he refused when he was called to the stand at the trial on Wednesday, she would find him in contempt of court and have him jailed.

Federal prosecutors have asked Illston to find Anderson, 43, in contempt of court and imprison him for the duration of the trial, which is scheduled to last about three weeks.

Anderson has consistently taken the position that a 2005 plea agreement freed him from any requirements for further involvement in a sports steroids probe centered on the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO.

But federal prosecutors claim his testimony is crucial to their case against Bonds because it would allegedly link evidence to Bonds. That evidence includes three positive steroids tests taken in 2000 and 2001 and alleged doping calendars seized from Anderson's Burlingame home in 2003.

In his 2005 plea agreement, Anderson pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to distribute anabolic steroids to professional athletes and a second count of laundering money received for steroids.

He was sentenced to three months in prison and three months of home confinement.

In 2006 and 2007, Anderson spent more than a year in prison for contempt of court for refusing to testify against Bonds before a grand jury that eventually indicted Bonds in 2007.

The defense attorneys also filed a three-page motion asking Illston to dismiss the charges against Bonds on the grounds that "the prosecution's last-minute decision to proceed with the appeal obviously has a disruptive effect on this court's proceedings."

The defense attorneys said that if Illston dismisses the charges, prosecutors could appeal the dismissal along with earlier evidence ruling.