Both sides in Bonds trial: Limit evidence

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- Lawyers for both sides in the perjury trial of baseball's home-run champion Barry Bonds asked the judge to set limitations on testimony the jury may consider.

The former Giants player was accused of perjury for telling a grand jury he never knowingly had used banned drugs. Bonds had testified during the 2003 trial in which the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative was accused of providing steroids to professional baseball players.

Federal prosecutors don't want the jury to hear at the trial, scheduled for March 21 in federal court, that the government spent too much money during its seven-year investigation of Bonds's alleged steroid use, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Tuesday.

Bonds's attorneys want to keep out of court the testimony of Kimberly Bell, his former girlfriend, that steroid use caused the ballplayer to lose his temper and threaten once to kill her, the Chronicle said.

Prosecutors also want the judge to keep defense lawyer Michael Rains from testifying that the government set a "perjury trap" for Bonds by refusing to let him see documents promised to him before he testified in 2003.

The judge is expected to rule on the motions March 1.