03.04.08 5:00 AM CST
• Sports
• Playboy Staff
Playboy Contributing Editor Jonathan Littman (jonlittman@earthlink.net) brings us the latest on the Barry Bonds case:SAN FRANCISCO -- The judge in the Barry Bonds perjury case slapped the government hard Friday, directing prosecutors to redraft their flawed and ambiguous indictment and ordering the unsealing of Bonds’ grand jury testimony.
The hearing was called to determine whether Judge Susan Ilston would grant Bonds’ motion to dismiss all or part of the five-count indictment. After hearing brief arguments from both sides, she ordered prosecutors to either drop some of the charges or start from scrap with a new set of counts.
Ilston showed little patience for the prosecutors’ argument that ambiguities and duplicity in the counts should be heard at trial. Accusing Bonds of lying multiple times in each count, she explained, was piling on. “The government needs to choose,” she said. Bonds’ gray-haired attorney Dennis Riordan, author of the motion to dismiss, volunteered to redraft the flawed indictment and save the government from having to take the cumbersome step of “dismissal and a superceding indictment.”
Prosecutor Douglas Wilson appeared taken aback by Riordan’s audacious offer, and persisted in stumbling on with his argument that evidence introduced at trial would make the ambiguities and duplicity irrelevant.
Ilston leaned back in her chair and clicked her pen. “Why wait until trial to fix a problem?” she said, taking off her glasses and pressing forward. “We know what the problem is.”
Before that blow had fully sunken in, Ilston delivered a shocker. She questioned the need to keep Bonds’ grand jury testimony secret.
“Is there any reason to continue to have it under seal?” she asked. Other than selective leaks published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Bonds’ grand jury testimony has been sealed since December 2003.
Wilson retreated to huddle with Matt Parrella, the lead BALCO prosecutor. “There would have to be a court order,” the junior prosecutor told Ilston.
The judge turned to the defense and with a hint of irony asked: “Do you object?”
Allen Ruby, another Bonds attorney, ambled up to the podium and smiled. Object? Of course not.
“I’m going to order it unsealed,” Ilston said, sending a wave of anticipation through the journalists in the courtroom. The transcripts were released Friday afternoon.
The government appeared dumbfounded. Uncertain whether to edit the indictment or to begin all over again with an entire new set of counts. Ilston granted Wilson’s request for a status hearing March 21, but added a stern warning: “It would help me if you could file something jointly or separately” before.
Outside the federal building 10 minutes later, Bonds’ attorneys were shaking hands, and patting Riordan on the back, clearly celebrating. Bonds wasn’t there, having been excused from attending by Ilston.
No one, not even the attorneys, was quite clear whether Bonds was still technically under a federal indictment – at least until the government shores up its case.
Said Riordan to the cameras: “Right this moment, there is not a valid indictment.”
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