Judge asks for a redraft on Bonds’ case

The grand jury testimony that led to Barry Bonds being charged with the federal crimes of perjury and obstruction of justice was ordered unsealed Friday by a federal judge who also ordered prosecutors to reword their indictment of the all-time home run king.

The original indictment revealed Bonds had tested positive for testosterone in an independent test sought by Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative founder Victor Conte in November 2000.

The document released Friday shows that prosecutors questioned Bonds about what appeared to be at least one other test, also sought by BALCO, revealing an elevated testosterone level.

Prosecutors described a test taken on Jan. 19, 2001, showing a “testosterone free” reading “greater than 5.00,” then asked Bonds if he knew why his testosterone would have been “higher than the normal range for males 29 to 49 years.”

Bonds, apparently being shown a lab document, replied that he could not answer the question because “I don’t understand this piece of paper,” according to the transcript.

Conte, who served time in federal prison after pleading guilty to steroid distribution and money laundering, expressed doubt about the legitimacy of the government’s evidence. Conte has said before that he didn’t know of more than one test on Bonds’ urine.

“It’s my recollection that all of the anabolic steroid test results from urine samples associated with BALCO were identified by numbers,” Conte said in an e-mail to The Times on Friday night. “I don’t believe that any of the actual laboratory reports themselves had athlete’s names on them. . . . There was no chain of custody for any of the urine samples associated with BALCO that were tested for anabolic steroids.”

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston told prosecutors they need to rephrase each of the five criminal counts against Bonds so that multiple alleged false statements aren’t attached to a single count. The November indictment against Bonds listed 19 alleged lies he made during December 2003 grand jury testimony.

Yet he was charged with four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice.

More counts could be coming, or the government could opt to have a tighter focus on what it deems to be the most severe of Bonds’ alleged false statements and edit out those statements it had previously underlined as untrue.

Bonds’ next court date is March 21, when prosecutors are expected to respond to Ilston’s order. Prosecutors declined to comment to reporters after Friday’s court appearance in San Francisco.

Bonds did not attend the hearing.

The 152 pages of Bonds’ testimony before the grand jury in San Francisco included question-and-answer sessions in which Bonds denied ever ingesting performance-enhancing steroids or human growth hormone.

He also denies being injected with steroids by his personal trainer Greg Anderson. The government has identified those claims as alleged lies.

Much of the grand jury exchange was previously leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle, allowing that newspaper to break news about Bonds’ appearance.

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