NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) -- Bail for a former Rutgers University football player charged in connection with multiple home invasions was cut in half Friday, but the defense said his family might not be able to raise the money.

Geno Lewis #7 of the Penn State Nittany Lions attempts to run past Andre Boggs #24 of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights
Geno Lewis #7 of the Penn State Nittany Lions attempts to run past Andre Boggs #24 of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights on September 13, 2014. (Alex Goodlett/Getty Images)
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Superior Court Judge Dennis Nieves cut Andre Boggs' bail to $300,000 and said Boggs' has to pay the full amount.

Defense lawyer Jim Donohue had asked that bail be lowered to $500,000 with the option of paying 10 percent.

Boggs, 20, and co-defendant Tejay Johnson, 23, who also once was on the team, have pleaded not guilty to charges of robbery, conspiracy and weapons offenses in home invasions this year.

Boggs was among six football players dismissed from the team following arrests this month in various cases, and another player faces domestic violence charges after police say he slammed a woman to the ground after the team's loss last Saturday.

Also this week, coach Kyle Flood was suspended for three games and fined $50,000 after the university found he contacted a faculty member over a player's grade.

Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Kuberiet alleges that Boggs and Johnson took pictures of drugs and cash they stole and left a trail of incriminating text messages. Investigators also allegedly found Johnson's fingerprint on one of the victims' cellphone.

Donohue argued in court Friday that the alleged victims were drug dealers and that neither they nor Boggs' co-defendants could be trusted. A man not connected to the team has also been charged along with Boggs and Johnson.

Kuberiet told the judge that the charges against Boggs deserved a significant bail amount.

"There can't be any more serious offense, besides homicide," Kuberiet said.

Over the last decade, Rutgers has been trying to build up its sports programs, a move that some at the university see as a way to improve the prestige of New Jersey's flagship state university. The university absorbed two medical schools in 2013 as part of a higher-education restructuring designed largely to make Rutgers into a biomedical research powerhouse.

The football team had been to only one bowl game before 2005; it has played in bowl games in nine of the last 10 seasons.

Rutgers teams began playing last year in the Big Ten, one of the nation's highest-profile athletic conferences. Rutgers plays at Penn State on Saturday.

 

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