Feds Triple Charges for Bonds, But Legal Exposure Stays the Same

[WSJ Law Blog]

The Feds may have nearly tripled the number of charges against Barry Bonds yesterday, but his legal exposure remains the same. In a re-written indictment unsealed in federal court in San Francisco, Bonds (pictured, in earlier days), who’s accused of lying under oath about his use of steroids, is charged with 14 counts of perjury, up from the original five counts.

“It’s exactly the same,” Golden Gate U. law prof Peter Keane told the AP. “It’s two ways of saying it’s lying and there’s really no substantial difference between what he was charged with then and what he is charged with now.” Another legal eagle told the San Fran Chron that the new indictment wouldn’t necessarily increase Bonds’ likely maximum sentence of 30 months in prison if he is convicted of all the charges at his upcoming trial.

Bonds’ legal team objected to the initial indictment, handed up in November, because by law, the government can accuse a defendant of only one crime per count of an indictment. Bonds lawyer Dennis Riordan contended that the indictment accused Bonds of telling as many as five lies in a single perjury count. Judge Susan Illston agreed, and ordered the government to rewrite the document. The new indictment broke each of the old perjury charges into multiple new ones.

“All the government wanted to do here was cure the indictment to make sure the case could move forward,” Daniel C. Richman, a former prosecutor and Columbia law prof told the NYT. “Ironically, the government’s response was to give the jury more choices on what they can convict him on.”