http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/11/BADF1HLMJ7.DTL Federal prosecutors narrowed their indictment against Barry Bonds on Thursday by dropping six of the 11 felony counts, but retained their central accusation: that baseball's all-time home run leader lied to a grand jury in 2003 when he denied knowingly taking steroids. Among the charges eliminated from earlier indictments were claims that Bonds perjured himself by denying that he received testosterone from his trainer, Greg Anderson, and that Anderson supplied him with certain lotions - known as "the cream" and "the clear" - before 2003. Prosecutors say the lotions contained steroids. Bonds has said Anderson told him they consisted of arthritis balm and flaxseed oil. But the new five-count grand jury indictment maintains the thrust of the prosecution's allegations that Bonds committed perjury and obstructed justice by denying that he knew Anderson was giving him performance-enhancing drugs. It wasn't clear why prosecutors had trimmed the indictment, although several of the dropped counts refer to events in 2001 and 2002, when Bonds allegedly tested positive for steroids - tests that are inadmissible because of Anderson's refusal to testify. Defense lawyers were unavailable for comment. The first of the four remaining perjury counts is based on Bonds' reply to a prosecutor's question about whether he ever took steroids from Anderson: "Not that I know of." Prosecutors say Bonds' statements to others, and testimony by ex-ballplayers treated by Anderson, will show that Bonds was lying. Bonds also is accused of falsely denying that Anderson ever injected him with any drug, had given him human growth hormone, or had administered any oils or creams before 2003. The obstruction-of-justice charge accuses Bonds of interfering with the grand jury investigation by answering those questions, and possibly others, in a way that was "intentionally evasive, false and misleading." Bonds has pleaded not guilty. He is scheduled to go to trial in San Francisco on March 21. Bonds testified in December 2003 to a grand jury that was investigating BALCO, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative of Burlingame. Five defendants, including Anderson and BALCO founder Victor Conte, later pleaded guilty to illegally distributing drugs through the lab. Anderson has refused to testify against Bonds and spent more than a year in prison for contempt of court before being released in November 2007, when Bonds was indicted. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston has barred evidence that Bonds tested positive for steroids in 2001 and 2002, ruling that without Anderson's testimony, prosecutors could not prove the samples came from Bonds. Prosecutors can still offer testimony from Bonds' former girlfriend and one of his ex-teammates, both of whom allegedly said Bonds had admitted using steroids. The prosecution also plans to play a tape recording by Bonds' former business manager, Steve Hoskins, in which Anderson allegedly describes injecting Bonds. Illston has ruled that the tape is admissible because Anderson's statements were potentially self-incriminating - a legal basis for allowing out-of-court hearsay - but defense lawyers will ask her to reconsider at a hearing scheduled for today. --

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