By Laurel Brubaker Calkins
Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Brian McNamee, the former trainer of Roger Clemens, has submitted sworn statements by a federal prosecutor to back up his claim that he was coerced into naming the pitcher as a steroid user in a 2007 baseball investigation.
McNamee may be granted immunity in a defamation suit Clemens has lodged against him if his evidence convinces a judge that federal agents threatened to prosecute him unless he told a panel led by former Senator George Mitchell what he’d already told prosecutors about Clemens.
In papers filed in Houston federal court today, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Parrella, who is investigating the use of banned substances by professional athletes, said he told McNamee that the trainer may become a target if he didn’t cooperate. Parrella said McNamee was given immunity for anything he said during the investigation.
“I told McNamee that speaking to the Mitchell Commission was part of his cooperation with the investigation in order to maintain his witness status,’’ Parrella said in his affidavit. “Prior to the interviews with the Mitchell Commission, I informed McNamee that the proffer agreement executed earlier would cover those interviews and that he could also face prosecution’’ if he made false statements to the Mitchell panel.
Clemens sued McNamee in January, saying the trainer’s comments to the Mitchell investigation ruined the pitcher’s reputation and may cost him election to the sport’s Hall of Fame. Mitchell was probing the use of performance-enhancing drugs at the request of Major League Baseball.
“He didn’t do it voluntarily, but under the threat of prosecution as part of his agreement with the government,’’ Richard Emery, McNamee’s lawyer, said in a phone interview today. “He didn’t want to say anything about Clemens. But in order to protect his children, he testified.’’
November Hearing
At a November hearing in Houston federal court, Clemens’s lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison to deny McNamee immunity. They said shielding McNamee’s statements from civil liability would stretch the concept of immunity beyond its intended purpose of protecting witnesses who provide information to the government.
“Mr. Mitchell was a private individual doing a private investigation for a private client,’’ Lara Hollingsworth, one of Clemens’s lawyers, told Ellison last month. “Just because prosecutors were sitting in the back of the same room doesn’t change the nature of that conversation.’’
After that hearing, Ellison ordered McNamee to provide proof of his coercion claims by today.
Required to Testify
In addition to Parrella’s sworn statement, McNamee filed affidavits from attorney Charles Scheeler, who assisted Mitchell during his interviews, and from Earl S. Ward, McNamee’s lawyer at the time. Both men say federal agents required the former trainer to testify to the Mitchell Commission. Scheeler said McNamee was told that he would face charges if he made any false statements.
“We don’t see anything in the affidavits that changes our original position,” Hollingsworth said in a phone interview today. “Nothing changes the fact McNamee wasn’t under legal compulsion to talk. It may have been part of a cooperation agreement, but he was voluntarily complying.”
Clemens, 46, was named in December 2007 as a steroid user in a report issued by Mitchell. Clemens was listed after McNamee told investigators he injected Clemens with steroids and human- growth hormone multiple times from 1998 to 2001.
Until McNamee’s claims surfaced, Clemens was considered a safe bet for election to baseball’s Hall of Fame on the basis of his seven Cy Young Awards, the sport’s highest pitching honor.
The case is Clemens v. McNamee, 4:08-cv-00471, in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas (Houston).
