"Prosecutors rested their perjury case against Barry Bonds on Tuesday after the judge refused to let the jury hear a secret tape of the slugger's former business manager and his surgeon discussing the BALCO steroids raid.

In more than two weeks of trial, the government called more than a dozen witnesses - baseball players, doping scientists and onetime Bonds confidants - in an effort to prove that the former Giants star lied in 2003 when he told a grand jury that he had never knowingly used banned drugs.

Bonds pleaded not guilty to four charges of lying under oath and one charge of obstruction of justice.

After prosecutor Matthew Parrella said the government had no more witnesses, lead defense lawyer Allen Ruby told Judge Susan Illston, "If Mr. Bonds testifies, it will be tomorrow." He was smiling when he said it.

Prosecutors wrapped up their presentation to the jury by having court personnel read the transcript that is at the heart of the case: Bonds' December 2003 testimony before the grand jury that investigated the sports steroids scandal at the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative in Burlingame.

In three hours of sparring with prosecutors during that testimony, Bonds repeatedly denied using banned drugs.

Late Tuesday, the judge said she is inclined to pare back the government's evidence some more. She said she is thinking of throwing out testimony from Bonds' former girlfriend, Kimberly Bell, suggesting that Bonds had suffered atrophy of his testicles. The judge said the government hadn't sufficiently proved that occurred or that it was a side effect of steroid use.

The judge also said she is likely to cut more passages from a 2003 tape of Bonds' former trainer, Greg Anderson, in the Giants clubhouse discussing the undetectable drugs he said he was giving Bonds. That's because it is a "close question" whether the BALCO designer steroid THG, known as "the clear," was illegal in 2003, she said.

She also said she will probably drop the count of the indictment referring to whether Anderson provided Bonds with "anything" prior to 2003. The only evidence in the trial that ties Bonds to the use of BALCO drugs is from 2003, she said. The judge jailed Anderson for contempt of court because he refused to testify at the trial."