SAN FRANCISCO — Barry Bonds' legal team is preparing for the San Francisco slugger to be indicted as soon as next week and has begun plotting his defense.

Attorney Laura Enos told The Associated Press yesterday that Bonds, second on the career home run list, could be charged with tax evasion and perjury.

Enos, Bonds' personal attorney, also said the lawyers believe the grand jury investigating the star player will expire Thursday.

"We are very prepared," Enos said. "We have excellent tax records and we are very comfortable that he has not shortchanged the government at all."

Also yesterday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to free Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, from prison. A federal judge on July 5 ordered Anderson jailed until he agreed to testify before the grand jury investigating Bonds.

Anderson was one of five people convicted in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative scandal.

The grand jury is probing Bonds for allegedly lying to a different grand jury that led to Anderson's conviction.

Bonds testified in 2003 that he never knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs and said Anderson had given him flaxseed oil and arthritis balm, not steroids.

The BALCO probe netted calendars and other documents connecting Bonds to the lab.

Former girlfriend Kimberly Bell is a key witness in the case and has testified that Bonds told her of his steroid use and flew into rages she attributed to steroid use, according to grand jury testimony obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Enos said Bonds denies those allegations and will argue that Bell's testimony amounts to "pillow talk."

The grand jury also is believed to be investigating Bonds for tax evasion in connection with cash he allegedly gave Bell to buy a house. The money came from sales of Bonds' signatures on baseball memorabilia, and the income allegedly was not reported to the IRS.