Evidence against Clemens?
-
- February
- 6
The Daily News is reporting today that Brian McNamee kept syringes, gauze pads and vials that he claimed were used to inject Roger Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone.
The supposed evidence was given to IRS special agent Jeff Novitzky in January. McNamee’s lawyers will talk more about this tomorrow when their client is interviewed in Washington.
Clemens said he denied PED use when interviewed by House attorneys under oath yesterday. If physical evidence can be tied directly to Clemens, he could face charges. McNamee reportedly kept the syringes, gauze pads and needles since 2000 and 2001.
Does it strike anybody else as odd that a personal trainer would hold on to such things for six years? What was his motive?
Blackmail? The memorabilia market? This bizarre chapter in baseball history won’t be ending any time soon.
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on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 6:34 pm by Peter Abraham.
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Peter Abraham
Pete: There are two conclusions I draw from that, either:
1) All the DNA evidence has been contaminate via passage of time and is thus not admissible in court, (and no lawyer worth his salt would use it)
or
2) McNamee has been waiting to do this for the past SIX years. Which just makes him a vindictive a$$.
It’s scary, my only legal educations is from CSI and Law and Order, and yet the government and McNamee can’t seem to figure this out…
Pete,
In a word, “yes.” Very strange, indeed. Even stranger when you think that McNamee could have unveiled all of it, or at least mentioned he had it, when he met with Mitchell.
Sigh.
Stunning.
This, if real, is the smoking gun most of us who have been sitting on the fence were waiting for to make our final call.
If he has syringes and such with Clemens’ DNA in them that also were used for PED’s with traces of them in them, he can forget about the hall of fame.
I don’t think he’ll go to jail though. Even if Clemens’ DNA is in syringes with traces of PED’s also in them, I’m sure he’s going to go back to the “I thought he was injecting me with (fill in the blank), not PED’s” OR they’ll switch to the Macnamee is trying to destroy the man and fabricated evidence defense and play on his lack of character and Clemens purported strength of character.
What’s amazing is it’s entirely possible that Pete Rose, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens all might never get into the hall of fame some day.
I just wish the baseball season would start already so we can just get all this past us. Baseball is the cure for everything.
That’s so not sanitary
What’s even stranger will be how they (McNamee’s side) will be able to argue successfully a logical chain of custody with this “evidence”.
How were the samples stored? That’s going to be a key issue.
Just handing someone some old syringes really isn’t much unless they were stored in a pristine way.
Its just an ugly, sordid deal with a lot of smoke but, as of yet, no fire.
Maybe he was reusing the needles? Clemens could have more than jail time to worry about!
If this is true, it would be pretty damning of Clemens. We’ll all see Feb. 13 when Clemens, Pettitte and McNamee testify PUBLICLY in front of Congress. Rumor is that Pettitte will back up McNamee’s story.
And is it not strange that while supposedly cooperating fully with the Mitchell report, he never thought to mention this?
And he waits until the day after Clemens says under oath he didn’t do it? It’s not enough to shop Clemens, he wants him in the cell next to Bonds now?
The only thing this does is cast some doubt on Clemens in the general public. I can only assume that McNamee wanted to see what Clemens said yesterday, and then do whatever was necessary to keep himself out of jail.
I heard Roger was so vein (pun intended) that he autographed all of the syringes and gauze pads before giving them to McNamee…What an ego-maniac that Roger is!!!
It is gross and disgusting, and enough already. BACK TO BASEBALL!!
McNamee is doing everything that he can to discredit himself.
Rebecca, McNamee reportedly kept the evidence to protect himself against Clemens should word of his PED use come out. And it looks like McNamee had good reason to watch his ass. Most people think Clemens is guilty, yet Clemens has been executing a full out attack on McNamee since the Mitchell Report was released.
I simply don’t believe McNamee, Not that I’m sure that Roger is clean, just if its true why didn’t he say this till now? And why should he keep this stuff for so long?
And lets say it is from Roger maybe it’s from the B-12 Shots (like roger claims)
Most people think Clemens is guilty,....
thats because most people like garbage on other people!!
Brian, McNamee reportedly handed over some of the evidence in Jan, so your theory on him being vindictive may not be accurate. But so what if McNamee is trying to put Clemens in jail? How would you feel about Clemens if he’s been executing a million dollar campaign claiming that you were a crazy maniac for the past few months.
Ben,
On my computer all the letters with tails get cut off. You name is Ben(I’m Haooy Huohes Staved). Is that happening to anyone else?
You’d think that McNamee would be smarter than this. You’d think that he’d have used the “smoking gun” evidence to blackmail Roger years, or even months, ago. I thought criminals were supposed to be smart.
I’d listen to the feds who are saying ‘Get us Clemens, or we will bury you, as we know more about you than you know about yourself’
Doreen,
I feel like im in the Tom Hanks movie where he is so bored stuck on an island. That he starts talking to a ball and calls him Wilson. NYPD is sort of a Wilson here. Iv never had a problem with him. But i see that he’s rubbed people the wrong way.At least its passing time and not talking about Clemens,Santana etc. Cant wait to get going next week. Till then i’ll continue to shoot the shh about other stuff. Hope they all come in in goood shape. Especially Damon. My prediction is a better record this year than last.
Mel –
“On my computer all the letters with tails get cut off. You name is Ben(I’m Haooy Huohes Staved). Is that happening to anyone else?”
Me too… on mine I can see the whole thing if I highlight it with my mouse. It then seems to magically turn normal.
For long-time readers of the blog:
I’m trying to track down a poem that Peter referenced in the following entry from earlier this year when the Yanks were playing at Safeco in Seattle. The poem was posted on a plaque at the field and spoke to the effect of the game of baseball being a true common denominator amongst men; enabling each to succeed or fail of their own free will…free of any outside, political or otherwise influence.
Anybody know this poem or where I can find it? Pete’s original entry only featured a jpeg photo of the poem which is no longer available:
http://yankees.lhblogs.com/2007/05/12/walking-around-safeco/
Lindsey,
Thank you! I’m not crazy after all. Well, you know what I mean.
what a creep.
Rebecca & SJ44, having watched my share of Law & Order and CSI I agree with both of you. I think most of us will be shocked if McNamee had the evidence stored and secured in such a way to maintain its integrity.
As a number of people have also asked, what exactly was his forethought deciding to keep this stuff since 2000??!! I’m guessing he figured it could be his “get out of jail free” card if ever needed and low and behold here we are 7-8 years later!
There’s one thingthat could seriously impact the Yankee’s pitching situation that’s often overlooked.How will Andy Pettitte be impacted by his congressional testimony? I think legally he will come out fine. But it remains to be seen where his head will be at when it’s all said and done. Andy could very well become the most important question mark this Spring. The Yanks can’t afford to be without him.
McNamee is pure human trash and the Feds are no better,
This is simply disgusting
If MaNamee told Mitchell that Clemens provided the drugs, how is now in possession of this evidence?
A very good friend of mine is a business associate of a former pitcher that retired 2 years ago. After the Mitchell Report came out, this pitcher told my friend that he estimated 70 – 80% of the professional baseball players ,at some point in their career,have used some sort of substance that’s now been banned.
Despite hearing this, I’m believing Roger Clemens until the evidence proves otherwise.
I guess nobody’s interested in helping out a long-time reader.
We know nothing. Why speculate?
Dude,
I cannot see the poem in that link.
B4 this news came out I suspected Roger was lying big time. Now I have to question McNamee’s motive. Why on earth would somebody hold on to a used syringe for more than 6 years? McNamee has lost any credibilty. This reeks of extortion.
It’s not extortion if McNamee isn’t seeking any financial gain.
Paul Byrd told reporters in October 2007 that his HGH use was “a private matter” and that he still has a pituitary problem. The media accepted that easily and you haven’t heard a word about Paul Byrd or a word about any lingering problems for the Indians. In fact, Eric Wedge and Mark Shapiro each received awards from NY and Boston writers for excellence in managing—all without asterisks.
Did Byrd have a prescription for HGH? If so, his explanation is more plausible, although still subject to suspicion.
Bronx Bomber,
Try emailing the public relations people at the Mariners.
So the story we are expected to swallow from McNamee is that he had such tremendous foresight way back in 2000 that PEDs would be an issue in the future and that the federal government would have nothing better to do with its time then to meddle in baseball. Therefore, he saved the needles and gauze pads he used on Clemens to inject him with PEDs? Does he have the same “evidence” on other players?
M’s are looking into it for me…supposedly there are hundreds of poems throughout the park though.
I just don’t see how this “evidence” would ever hold up in court. We already know for an absolute fact that McNamee injected Clemens with SOMETHING, Clemens himself has said that. Clemens lawyer will take about two seconds to point out that McNamee could have injected Clemens with something legal, and later added the steroids/HGH to the needle/gauze pads/etc. in order to blackmail him…and the fact that he’s held onto this stuff for six years just adds to that.
I’m not saying that’s what McNamee did. But after six years I really don’t see how they’d make a case against Clemens based on THAT for physical evidence and the word of one person who, to be honest, doesn’t seem entirely stable.
Now if other players/trainers/whatever give up Clemens too, different story.
“It’s not extortion if McNamee isn’t seeking any financial gain.”
Perhaps he meant that McNamee had planned to extort Clemens (i.e., why he held onto this for so long).
Although there’s no question now that McNamee would stand to gain from it, he was probably headed to jail for a long time if he didn’t name Clemens. He wasn’t going to get let off the hook on “Chuck Knoblauch and one time Andy Pettitte did it but didnt like it much”.
invictusyanks, no, the story we’re expected to swallow is that McNamee observed some rather bizarre behavior from Clemens both in late 2000 and early 2001 that made him think he’d better watch his back—namely, the “I thought it was the ball” behavior towards Mike Piazza, and a few months later Clemens being arrested for aggravated assault in a nightclub called Bayou Mama’s when Clemens hopped on the back of an off-duty cop and attempted to choke him.
Some of Clemens’ subsequent behavior might have made McNamee think twice about Clemens’ honesty towards him, if Clemens could lie to NYY fans, then to Astros fans about his retirement plans (that should answer Pete’s question above, too).
As far as the reliability of the “physical evidence” is concerned, I doubt it would have even been turned over to the Feds if it hadn’t been vetted pretty thoroughly by McNamee’s attorneys as to its proper “chain of custody”. Or accepted by the Feds, for that matter.
At least that’s what I’d expect if I were to judge the matter, and I’d throw the “evidence” out if it were less than ideally handled. To me that would mean McNamee collecting the stuff and putting it in tamper-proof cases perhaps obtained from his friends in the CSI unit at the NYPD where he used to be a cop. Then turning it over to an independent lab or a legal authority for storage, and not touching it himself thereafter.
Noname, I’ll concede that it could be. I guess that is the problem…too much speculation on our part.
The problem with the vetting theory for the chain of custody is that a link in that chain is a party to the controversy. First thing I would do as defense counsel for Clemens would be to attack the chain at its first link.
“Mr. McNamee, were you the only other individual aside from Mr. Clemens when he was injected?”; “How long did you have the ‘evidence’ before you handed it to Mr. X?”; “How are we supposed to know if you didn’t tamper with the evidence before giving it to Mr. X?” (and all of this assuming that he did indeed have these items way back in 2000)
Exactly…how is this guy supposed to prove these tubes were medically sealed and dated by another person?
This is the same guy who put a date rape drug into a girls water bottle and raped her in a public pool.
SCUM.
Can they test Schilling’s sock?
“But-but-but I’ve restored the financial health of the game to new heights” ! ! !
First, McNamee is a freak for doing that. Second, if it’s true, Roger is going to be doing some hard time next to Barry somewhere. Hopefully, he will find some baseball fans in the inmates.
this smells like bill clinton all over again…
“i have never used steroids or growth hormone”
2 weeks later clemens tries to avoid purjury charges and keep himself out of jail…
“indeed i did use steroids and growth hormone”
1. WHY in heck is an IRS agent handling the evidence and leading this investigation? Talk about over stepping your bounds. I am very serious when I say that this needs to be looked into. There is no way that I would personally approve of them having this ability. How weakly can this be tied into something that he has authority in? Don’t give me the insane, just the common sense answer. This is an agent that gets to pick his own assignments as well…what the heck is this? The nazi’s had people that did the same thing.
Where is the oversight on that?
2. This should’ve been presented to Mitchell. If not…I am really sceptical of this “evidence.
3. He was his trainer and would’ve had access to his blood, syringes and PEDS (as we know with the NYPD, et al). This can be fabricated easy enough. He does have a police background.
4. I can actually see him injecting Clemons with the junk and not telling him so that Clemons would by into his “training plan.” It gave him a job and many fringe benefits.
5. He has lied to the police before and date-raped a girl.
6. Where is common sense here?
7. This is the same IRS (CIA -operative wannabe) that went after Barry Bonds. Waht is his role here? It was tax evasion with Bonds…here? What is going on?
PETE!
WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?
What gives with the IRS fool?
Actually, it smells like Dubya Bush:
1. The Iraq war is about WMD. No, I lied, it’s about Saddam. No, I lied it’s about democracy. No, I lied, it’s about al Qaeda.
2. Lies that have killed over 4000 US troops make sex lies unimportant.
3. Yet Bush made a film for the WH Correspondents dinner a few years ago mocking the search for WMD that killed over 4000 US troops.
But hey, let’s focus on an innocent sex lie instead.
To me, this makes McNamee less credible. Does not convict Clemens of anything. To me it looks like he was just saving it to blackmail everybody. Unbelievable!
Whoa:
I think you should stick to baseball on this blog.
rebecca2,
I didn’t bring up politics. Once someone did, it was fair for me to respond.
Notice that McNamee didn’t reveal this information until AFTER Clemens locked himself into his story under oath yesterday. It seems clear that McNamee is looking to destroy Clemens by setting him up in a perjury trap.
Hmmm, interesting that it was given in January but this is the first its being leaked. I am wondering which party is going to be burned by this. There are a number of ways for forensic evidence to show if it is looking legitimate or not. Type of needle, mixing of the trace evidence.
This could doom Clemens, but it could also come down on McNamee.
According to ESPN scroll, a “source” is claiming that McNamee saved this evidence because McNamee thought that Clemens would lie about illicit drug use. That seems a bit too convenient to me. That is probably the lie that McNamee will use to cover his real reasons.
Either way, this could signal an end game with all this. Someone is going to go down from this.
McNamee’s creepy background; tons of Federal pressure; and this bizzare new story—there is definitely something deeply disturbing about this character and everything he seems to “be about”.....
His computer’s history ought to be a riot !!!
Espn news caption during the Duke-NC game reads that McNamee saved the syringes and gauze pad from the 2000-2001 era in case Clemens denied his hgh/steroid use.
So from what I understand, Clemens brings McNamee over from Toronto to NY in 2000 as his personal trainer and according to McNamee during this period, 2000-2001, McNamee is saving all this Clemens drug paraphernalia to be used as incriminating evidence to bring Clemens down, his then close personal friend, at some point down the road. Which is now 8 years later. Et tu Brute.
McNamee never used the alleged evidence to blackmail Clemens. There is no indication that he asked Clemens for money), at least from everything that has been publicly revealed.
Perhaps he kept the evidence to defend himself in case Clemens tried to implicate him in his drug usage.
In the end, it appears that he only used the evidence to keep himself out of jail.
How many of us would go to jail to protect Roger Clemens?
This reminds me of Monica Lewinsky saving that blue dress.
This is all so spectacularly insane that if this whole thing was a movie I would have rolled my eyes so hard and said give me a break.
Please bring me back to baseball, bob sheppard and hot dogs…even though the dogs are like 7 bucks nowadays.
Whoa, do you honestly believe that back in 2000 that McNamee would be thinking that he should keep evidence that Clemens used PEDs yet didn’t keep copies of checks given to him for purchases, didn’t keep journals of specific dates he did these treatments? Think about that.
This isn’t like some silly intern who had sex with a president and wanted to have a keepsake. This is a man who had dealt drugs he knew to be illegal. This is a man who drugged and raped a woman. This is a man who lied to his fellow cops in a disciplary action.
What makes more sense? 1. McNamee figured he was going to get caught dealing PEDs, was going to name Clemens at some time in the future and knew that Clemens would look to sue him, so he kept syringes and gauze and vials. or 2. McNamee knew Clemens career was going to end sometime, meaning the gravy boat he was on was going to end. Keeping some syringes and gauze and vials of HGH and Steroids with some of Clemens blood on the syringe could come in handy if he needed to have an additional payday from Clemens or he would set Clemens up with PED claims.
You can’t separate the person from all their actions throughout their life, or think of them as you might act. You evaluate them by their own actions through the years.
the NY Times article has some actual journalism on the supposed evidence. It isn’t likely to prove anything; apparently even if there is a gauze pad/syringe with Roger’s DNA & some illicit drug, the doctor consulted as a ‘doping expert’ in the article says “there is no way to prove that a syringe from seven or eight years ago had not been tampered with so that it now showed evidence of a drug.”
Given the timing of when McNamee produced these items, and unless there is some definitive scientific proof to the contrary, a reasonable person will probably have to conclude that the evidence is counterfeited.
the article is at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/sports/baseball/07clemens.html
I have to agree – there is something very strange and vindictive in presenting this new “evidence” at this time. Since we know that McNamee had the drugs, the proper types of syringes and there is no problem getting cotton I wonder what he was doing with Roger’s fishing gear shortly before the Mitchell Report came out. Could it be that he knew there was some old blood there and that was why he was calling and asking for his gear? Roger’s attorneys are going back up to the hill tomorrow and somehow I don’t think much will come of this so-called evidence; it has been too long. This is just more of Roger’s buddy trying to turn the public against Roger. I guess Roger didn’t give him enough over the years.
Whoa
Move over to a political blog and take your agenda with you.
No surprise by the way that it’s the Daily News being used to shill for McNamee. The News has become the house organ for the McNamee defense team headed by openly acknowledged Friend of Lupica, Richard Emery.
If this was the evidentiary bombshell they claim it is, and nothing has been the bombshell they claim it is so far, why leak to the media the fact that this “evidence” was turned over to the Feds? Look at this quote from Emery:
[Richard Emery, another of McNamee’s lawyers, said the committee will be given a description of the evidence that was turned over to prosecutors.
“It does change the nature of the case from a he-said, she-said to something about physical evidence,” Emery said.]
http://www.optimum.net/News/AP/Article?articleId=381889
If the physical evidence was so unambiguous, there is no need for Emery to parse his words so precisely and awkwardly. If DNA, serology and toxicology analysis shows that McNamee is telling the truth, why would he need his lawyer to tell us what the evidence shows? It would speak for itself, loud and clear.
Given the flawed chain of custody (allowing for tampering by an interested witness who is defending a defamation suit), plus the dubious timing of McNamee’s decision to turn over the “evidence,” and the highly unlikely possibility that perishable DNA evidence was properly preserved for 6 or 7 years outside of a lab, rest assured that McNamee’s lawyers are spinning as hard as they can. But why? Looks like Emery and McNamee are feeling the heat.
Murphydog,
Seems we are of like minds on the suspicious nature of this “evidence”.
I believe that McNamee and his lawyer are trying to do what they can to sway the court of public opinion. These efforts make me wonder how truthful McNamee is being with all this.
I think Marcy might have a point as well. Wouldn’t it be hysterical if they do find “blood” to have DNA and it belongs to a fish?
OG:
“I believe that McNamee and his lawyer are trying to do what they can to sway the court of public opinion. These efforts make me wonder how truthful McNamee is being with all this.”
Exactly.
Did McNamee tell Mitchell about this? He had to be completely truthful in order to get his deal and Mitchell has said clearly several times since that he believed him. So, if McNamee had this evidence, why didn’t he bring it forward and ask the Feds to examine it then? Will the Feds say they knew about it but felt it wasn’t necessary to do a costly analysis because they already had McNamee’s “credible” testimony? Or was it because the Feds had doubts then and didn’t want to know whether McNamee was really lying?
Or did McNamee simply fail to bring it up to the Feds? Isn’t holding back a little insurance policy for oneself a form of incomplete disclosure that should cost McNamee his deal?
And I thought this wasn’t a criminal investigation. So why are the Feds still using expensive taxpayer criminal investigative resources to help this scummer McNamee with his civil legal troubles? Makes the Feds look even less objective than they did months ago.
I don’t trust anything that McNamee says at this point. If he told me the sun was shining, I would have to go outside and look before I believed him.
This “evidence” was only given the the Feds in January? Why only in January? It’s tough for me to believe that when the Feds interrogated McNamee much earlier and when McNamee was interviewed for the Mitchell report, no one asked McNamee if he had any physical evidence to support his claims. We’re now supposed to believe that somehow, this evidence, available at the time of those earlier interrogations, just wasn’t requested by the Feds or by Mitchell or just wasn’t provided by McNamee? I don’t buy it.
I think Andy Pettitte’s testimony will have have a lot of weight in deciding whether it’s Clemens or McNamee who is not being truthful. Pettitte at least has credibility….McNamee has none in my opinion.
PS Does anyone kho is paying for McNamee’s lawyers? I didn’t get the impression that he had the means to support a legal team for this length of time.
Perhaps he didn’t bring the evidence forward earlier since he was trying to protect Clemens. He could have been holding it in the hope that it wouldn’t be needed. Now that Clemens has said that McNamee is lying, McNamee can at least prove that he wasn’t lying. If this evidence exists, Clemens is screwed. Without the evidence, there was gray area.
Telling the Feds that he injected Clemens at least gives Clemens some wiggle room, and the opportunity for Clemens to admit it and move on. Giving the Feds that evidence upfront complete screws Roger.
Steve, this evidence doesn’t prove anything as it could be manufactured. What bothers me the most about McNamee is he keeps coming out with new things he just “remembered”. Suddenly, when he has a legal action brought against him he has syringes and gauze and vials?
How does giving damning testimony that filled more of the report than on any other figure named give Clemens wiggle room? Giving the evidence up front shows more for his complete disclosure, him keeping it back, if that is what he truly did, points to nefarious motives behind holding this stuff.
There could be two ways to take his comments during the taped phone call. One could have been where he was looking for money but couldn’t come out and say it. He kept asking what do you want me to do, and frankly he used the pretext of his son’s illness to get Clemens to contact him, yet he didn’t ask Clemens to talk to his son.
The man is a con job. This evidence he provided might just show that he tampered with it, and if he did, then his whole testimony comes into question. There has been plenty of time for this evidence he gave to have been tested by now. The Feds could possibly be setting McNamee up for a fall if they have evidence that it was tampered with. Remember, he was already being threatened with jail.
Clemens is coming across too much like the man wronged here. McNamee keeps acting like my kids do when I catch them in a lie. They keep compounding it, giving “new” information to bolster their case.
It will be interesting to see what gets said in the public portion of these hearings. The questions they ask will be giving you a good idea of what these people believe.
There is only one reason to keep this stuff (if it is real): Blackmail.
At the same time, if he truly had anything with old Clemens blood on it (pretty disgusting) it would be fairly for him to fabricate this old evidence.