Clemens perjury case goes to jury
Defense raps Mcnamee, says he ‘defines reasonable doubt’
Jurors in the Roger Clemens perjury trial got the case Tuesday afternoon after hearing impassioned closing statements from each side. They deliberated for about 15 minutes and will resume deliberations at 1:30 p.m. today because of a morning scheduling conflict. Closing arguments centered on Brian McNamee, the former New York Yankees strength coach who testified he injected Clemens with steroids and HGH.
WASHINGTON — The government says Roger Clemens lied to Congress. His defense team says chief accuser Brian McNamee lied in court. And it is up to a jury to decide who is telling the truth.
The panel of eight women and four men in the Clemens perjury trial got the case Tuesday afternoon and deliberated for about 15 minutes before close of business. The jury will resume deliberations at 1:30 p.m. ET today.
McNamee is a former New York Yankees strength and conditioning coach who testified that he injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone. Clemens testified before Congress in 2008 that he never took either.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Gil Guerrero said the government had proved Clemens made 13 false and misleading statements before Congress, adding the jury need find Clemens committed only one to find him guilty on a count of obstruction of Congress. Clemens is also charged with two counts of perjury and three of making false statements.
Defense attorney Rusty Hardin called it “outrageous” that the case even came to trial. He produced a chart that he said showed more than two dozen instances in which McNamee lied or came up short of the truth.
“Saying that Brian McNamee lies zero times is kind of like calling the Grand Canyon a ditch,” Hardin said.
But it was Hardin’s folksy closing statement on Clemens’ behalf, one expert says, that could resonate with jurors, particularly with the government’s case burdened by its dependence on McNamee.
“This is a case about perjury,” said ESPN legal analyst Roger Cossack, who watched the closing statements. “Either Clemens lied about steroids or he didn’t lie. And either the jury is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that McNamee is telling the truth or not. If not, then Clemens walks out of this case.”
The prosecution took one last stab at burnishing McNamee’s credibility. Assistant U.S. Attorney Courtney Saleski agreed that McNamee is a flawed man, but she said that “makes sense. He’s the perfect candidate to go to get drugs. . . . You know who Brian McNamee is: He’s Roger Clemens’ drug dealer.”
Defense attorney Michael Attanasio called McNamee “the only witness ever in the history of the world to say he gave or saw an injection” of Clemens, adding McNamee “defines reasonable doubt.”
Saleski asserted that Clemens chose to lie: “He had a chance to be a hero, but instead he stole the truth from Congress.”
She asked jurors to “get that truth back.”
Guerrero told jurors, “We’re not asking you to like” McNamee, who he said “did a lot things that aren’t nice.”
Guerrero said Clemens used McNamee to obtain steroids and HGH that he would not have been able to get from legitimate sources, such as team doctors or athletic trainers. Guerrero urged jurors to convict with the exhortation that they’re “the final umpires here.”
Hardin said Clemens told the truth when he told Congress he never took steroids or HGH. Hardin said if Clemens got smaller details wrong in his 2008 testimony, they were innocent mistakes born of faulty memory.
“He was a Cy Young ballplayer, not a Cy Young witness,” Hardin said.
Clemens’ wife and four sons were among onlookers in the crowded gallery.