Feds clean up act for Rocket

THE PROSECUTORS in the Roger Clemens perjury case want to make sure they don’t screw it up again when the former Yankee pitcher goes to trial next month.

Prosecutors Steven Durham and Daniel Butler said in court papers filed on Friday that they have reviewed and redacted exhibits they will present to the jury, and that they will give Clemens’ defense team a disk containing exhibits that are portions of recorded statements next week.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton declared amistrial in Washington in July after the prosecutors showed jurors evidence that he had barred. Clemens is charged with six felony counts, including perjury and obstruction of justice, stemming from his appearance at a 2008 congressional hearing on steroids and major league Baseball.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin in washington on april 16.

Clemens’ attorneys last year asked Walton to bar evidence regarding conversations Brian McNamee, Clemens’ former trainer, had with former Yankees Chuck Knoblauch, Mike Stanton and another witness associated with steroids and HGH. Walton didn’t grant their request, but said he would take it up when the feds asked that the testimony be presented to the jury.

In Friday’s filing, Durham and Butler proposed a way they say allows them to make their case but does not run afoul of Walton’s orders. They said they will introduce testimony that instructs the jury that Congress had uncovered steroid use by MLB players when it exercised its “broad investigatory authority” by performance-enhancing drugs in sports.

The feds also said they will show the jury that congressional investigations ledmlbto commission former Sen. George Mitchell to write the report that alleged Clemenshadused banneddrugs.