Kaiser surgeon indicted for perjury

Surgeon indicted on perjury charge — He’s accused of offering false alibi at gunman’s trial

Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer

A San Francisco surgeon was indicted Thursday on charges that he committed perjury during a federal trial in 2002 in an attempt to win an acquittal for a man he had sponsored in a drug rehabilitation program.

Dr. Bruce Barker, a 50-year-old physician for Kaiser Permanente, was the key witness in the trial of Marvin Washington, who was accused of illegally possessing a gun outside the Holly Courts public housing project, where he lived, in San Francisco.

Barker testified that he had been at the housing project on the afternoon that Washington was arrested, and had seen a cellular phone — not a gun — in his right hand. But prosecutors said the story was impossible.

Barker, they said, was 4 miles away, performing surgery at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center on Geary Boulevard.

“Our criminal justice system relies on the truthful testimony of witnesses, and perjury seriously undermines the integrity of that process,” Kevin Ryan, the U.S. attorney in San Francisco, said in a prepared statement.

Attempts to reach Barker, who sponsored Washington through an organization he directed called Men in Motion, were unsuccessful. Meg Walker, a spokeswoman for Kaiser, said Kaiser was looking into the matter but declined to comment further.

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