Judge drops 3 charges against Bonds, others remain

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. judge dismissed three charges Monday against Barry Bonds but let stand 12 others stemming from the BALCO doping scandal against the U.S. baseball home run king, who is accused of lying to a grand jury about steroid use.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston also said prosecutors need to correct errors in their indictment on perjury and obstruction of justice against Bonds, charged with lying in court when he testified in the BALCO lab steroid case that he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs.

The doping case led to the imprisonment of BALCO's owner and Bonds' personal trainer for steroid distribution and snared other high-profile athletes, including former track-and-field starts Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery.

The U.S. Department of Justice had no comment on Illston's order, said Joshua Eaton, a spokesman for its Northern District of California office in San Francisco, which is prosecuting Bonds.

The former All-Star outfielder's lawyers' were not immediately available for comment.

Bonds, a seven-time National League Most Valuable Player, has pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he lied about past steroid use. His trial is scheduled for early March.

Illston last month sentenced track and field coach Trevor Graham to one year of home confinement for lying to federal agents investigating the BALCO scandal.

Graham helped the government uncover the scandal by anonymously sending the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency a syringe with a then-undetectable steroid that was traced back to Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO, a San Francisco-area company.

(Reporting by Jim Christie, editing by Philip Barbara)