BOSTON – Three college friends of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will go on trial in June on charges they helped hide his tracks from the FBI, a U.S. judge ruled on Wednesday, January 14.

U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock denied a joint request by prosecutors and two of the defendants – Dias Kadyrbayev of Kazakhstan and Robel Phillipos of Cambridge, Massachusetts – to put the trial off until early next year to give defense attorneys more time to sort through millions of pages of evidence surrounding the bombing investigation.

The judge ruled their trial in Boston federal court would begin on June 23, even earlier than the July start that third defendant Azamat Tazhayakov, also of Kazakhstan, had requested.

Prosecutors contend that the three defendants, college friends of Tsarnaev, went to his dorm room at his request three days after the April 15 bombing – after the Federal Bureau of Investigation released pictures of Tsarnaev and his older brother, identifying them as suspects – and removed a laptop and backpack containing empty fireworks shells.

Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov, both exchange students, face obstruction of justice charges and, if convicted, could face 25 years in prison or deportation. Phillipos has been charged with lying to investigators and could face up to 16 years in prison.

All three have pleaded not guilty.

Three people died and 264 were injured when twin homemade pressure-cooker bombs went off at the crowded finish line of the race, in the worst mass-casualty attack on U.S. soil since the September 11, 2001, attacks. Prosecutors contend that Tsarnaev, 20, and his 26-year-old brother Tamerlan went on to kill a university police officer on April 18 as they prepared to flee the city.

Tamerlan died later that night when Dzhokhar ran him over with a stolen car while fleeing a gun battle with police.