Not a great year for the Rocket, Roger Clemens. The Hall of Fame pitcher saw his name flashed in the Mitchell Report about one year ago. The date is significant, because ex-Trainer Brian McNamee, hauled through the muck by Clemens, filed a defamation suit less then one year from the date of the Mitchell Report.
McNamee, leaned on by the Feds, gave the Rocket up to investigators. That apparently led to Mitchell's information, and to a Congressional hearing on the issue of Clemens's steroid use. In the process, McNamee produced bloody syringes from the Rocket's bottom, and testimony against Yankee pitchers, and McNamee clients Andy Pettitte and Clemens. Clemens, meanwhile, was exposed for a number of philandering affairs, PED use, and his choice of a cowboy lawyer Rusty Hardin. Clemens also threw his wife under the HGH bus (summary here).
We forgot, Clemens also labeled his ex-trainer McNamee a lier. That is when McNamee and his legal team took exception. To the New York Daily News:
Almost a year to the day after the Mitchell Report was released, Roger Clemens’ former trainer Brian McNamee filed a $10 million defamation lawsuit against the pitcher.
To avoid a statute of limitations issue, McNamee’s lawyers Earl Ward and Richard Emery quietly filed a summons and complaint for defamation Dec. 12 in Queens Supreme Court, one day before the one-year statute would have expired.
According to Ward, Clemens has not yet been served and is not aware of the suit.
Surprise Roger. Not only is the FBI investigating you, and Congress is a bit miffed, and the women you hung out with slitting wrists, and your bloody syringes getting checked for DNA, but surprise, you're sued again. Good thing he has all those Red Sox and Yankee bucks in the bank.
Honestly, this is a mess.
McNamee is defending a separate defamation suit Clemens filed in January against him in the Southern District of Texas and awaits a ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Keith Ellison on McNamee’s motion to dismiss. Last week, Ellison received affidavits from federal prosecutors saying that comments McNamee made to former Sen. George Mitchell in Mitchell’s report on drug use in baseball were part of a proffer agreement McNamee
made with the government to avoid prosecution.
Clemens sued McNamee in January for telling Mitchell that McNamee had injected the seven –time Cy Young Award winner with steroids and human growth hormone over several years.
Clemens immediately attacked McNamee after the Mitchell Report’s release, calling him a “troubled man” and a liar. Clemens told Mike Wallace on "60 Minutes" Jan. 6 that he never used performance-enhancing drugs. Clemens made similar comments before Congress in February at a congressional hearing on the Mitchell Report. Congress then referred Clemens’ case to the Justice Department for investigation of perjury. That investigation is still ongoing.
McNamee has been unable to resume his career as a trainer in the wake of the report.
Looks like the Daily News has made the4 case for defamation, especially if someone somewhere finds that Clemens indeed used PEDs. Dig deeper Rocket, dig deeper.
Comments