SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Sports fan John Lovell seemed more concerned about the state of women's tennis and professional boxing than the indictment Monday of Sacramento's best known athlete, Chris Webber.

''He's the only athlete who (allegedly) took payments from a booster and lied about it?'' Lovell asked in the middle of a conversation with two other patrons of a downtown sports bar. ''He is going to be acquitted at the end of the day.''

Webber, who led the Sacramento Kings to one game of the NBA finals last spring, was indicted Monday in Detroit on charges of lying to a grand jury about money and other benefits he received from a booster while at the University of Michigan.

The federal indictment accused the Kings forward, his father and his aunt of conspiring to conceal cash, checks, clothing, jewelry and other benefits provided by former Michigan booster Ed Martin from 1988-93.

Martin pleaded guilty in May to money laundering charges.

Kings fan Josh Setters, a bartender at a downtown Sacramento restaurant, also downplayed the seriousness of the charges against Webber, who could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison and fined $500,000 if convicted.

''Imagine being a 20-year-old kid, being broke and going to college,'' Setters said. ''You would have to be a pretty strong man not to take it.

''He will be acquitted. He will be all right because the Maloofs are going to get him a lawyer that is going to chop that court in half,'' he added, referring to Kings' owners Joe and Gavin Maloof.

The city's daily newspaper, The Sacramento Bee, and two Sacramento television stations made the indictment the top story on their Web sites. The Bee site also offered readers a look at the indictment itself, the Justice Department press release announcing the charges and past stories and columns on the case.

Chuck Dalldorf, chief of staff for Sacramento Mayor Heather Fargo, said the mayor would have no comment on the charges.

''She doesn't really want to comment on it,'' he said. ''This matter is not relevant to the city at all or the city's relationship to the Kings.

''An indictment is just an early part of the prosecution process. It's hard to say what this really means or if he's guilty of anything at this point.''

Darren May, a spokesman for the Kings, said the team also would have no comment.

''We really don't have an official response, largely due to the fact that we are still gathering information,'' he said. ''There is a process for this to be resolved and we are going to let that process take place.''

Webber has had a hot-and-cold relationship with Sacramento since the Kings traded Mitch Richmond and Otis Thorpe to the Washington Wizards for him in 1998. At one point he complained that he wanted to leave because he couldn't find decent soul food in the California capital.

But his signing last summer of the second-largest contract in NBA history, worth about $123 million over seven years, kept Webber in Sacramento.