New photographic evidence could prove damaging to Roger Clemens
BY TERI THOMPSON, MICHAEL O'KEEFFE, CHRISTIAN RED and NATHANIEL VINTON
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITERS
Friday, February 22nd 2008, 4:00 AM
As the congressional committee that spent nine weeks considering Roger Clemens' attack on the Mitchell Report now quietly mulls referring the entire matter to the Justice Department, federal investigators seasoned in the anti-doping game are ready to hit the ground running.
Their leads could include new photographic evidence that has emerged to potentially undermine Clemens' sworn testimony that he did not attend a 1998 party at the home of his then-teammate Jose Canseco - a party that figured both in the Mitchell Report and the Feb.13 public hearing in Washington.
The photo is owned by a young man who attended the party when he was 11 years old and took photos of his baseball heroes, including Clemens. Richard Emery, one of the lawyers for Clemens accuser Brian McNamee, was aware that such evidence had been circulating this week.
"We have reason to believe it's reliable evidence," Emery told the Daily News on Thursday. "We believe there's photographic evidence that shows Clemens was at a party he says he wasn't at."
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform does not necessarily have to make a formal request for the attorney general to initiate an investigation, although the committee may do so next week. Sources close to the case have told The News they expect the committee to refer the entire matter to the Justice Department rather than just refer Clemens.
That kind of referral would satisfy two groups that were vocal critics of the committee's inquest: Those who thought a failure to investigate Clemens' challenges to former Sen. George Mitchell's report on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, next to the federal indictment issued against Barry Bonds, signified a racist double-standard; and those who thought Congress had no business investigating baseball's drug problem to begin with.
"We haven't heard anything one way or the other," Rusty Hardin, one of Clemens' lawyers, replied when asked yesterday if he considered a criminal referral to be imminent.
A Justice Department investigation could lead Clemens into the kind of lengthy, expensive and serious criminal investigation that Bonds has undergone, opening the door to the government to examine the pitcher's claims with much broader investigative power than the committee's attorneys used.
Jeff Novitzky and Matthew Parrella, the IRS special agent and assistant United States Attorney, respectively, who have spent five years leading the government's prosecution of the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO), already are looking into the challenges Clemens made against McNamee, their pivotal cooperating witness.
Beyond the photograph, the BALCO busters would presumably look at the blood-stained medical refuse that McNamee saved for seven years, as well as the abscess on Clemens' buttocks and radically contradictory testimony that emerged from the last month's hearings and depositions.
Novitzky and Parrella are known to be looking into at least one gym in the Houston area that may have distributed performance-enhancing drugs to ballplayers. On Sunday, The News revealed that 1-on-1 Elite Personal Fitness, a gym in Pasadena, Tex., owned by a distant relative of Andy Pettitte named Kelly Blair, had supplied human growth hormone to Pettitte's father, who then shared it with the Yankee pitcher in 2004.
Blair's gym existed outside of any of the sources of performance-enhancing drugs that were identified in the Mitchell Report. Following The News' report, photographs of professional athletes associated from the Blair were removed from the gym's Web site.
McNamee, a former trainer for Clemens, began cooperating with the BALCO busters almost a year ago. His proffer agreement with Novitzky and Parrella - who had linked him to illegal drug deals, and could hold a prison term over his head - required that he cooperate with investigators and Sen. Mitchell. But it also obligated the two federal agents to follow the leads he gave them, at the very least to verify the accuracy of McNamee's claims.
The case, which could last for years, might result in a United States attorney presenting a case to a grand jury and potentially seeking a federal indictment. No U.S. attorney's office is more likely to adopt the Clemens-McNamee dispute than the Northern District of California, the office that has handled most of the government's recent prosecution of sports doping.
BY TERI THOMPSON, MICHAEL O'KEEFFE, CHRISTIAN RED and NATHANIEL VINTON
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITERS
Friday, February 22nd 2008, 4:00 AM
As the congressional committee that spent nine weeks considering Roger Clemens' attack on the Mitchell Report now quietly mulls referring the entire matter to the Justice Department, federal investigators seasoned in the anti-doping game are ready to hit the ground running.
Their leads could include new photographic evidence that has emerged to potentially undermine Clemens' sworn testimony that he did not attend a 1998 party at the home of his then-teammate Jose Canseco - a party that figured both in the Mitchell Report and the Feb.13 public hearing in Washington.
The photo is owned by a young man who attended the party when he was 11 years old and took photos of his baseball heroes, including Clemens. Richard Emery, one of the lawyers for Clemens accuser Brian McNamee, was aware that such evidence had been circulating this week.
"We have reason to believe it's reliable evidence," Emery told the Daily News on Thursday. "We believe there's photographic evidence that shows Clemens was at a party he says he wasn't at."
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform does not necessarily have to make a formal request for the attorney general to initiate an investigation, although the committee may do so next week. Sources close to the case have told The News they expect the committee to refer the entire matter to the Justice Department rather than just refer Clemens.
That kind of referral would satisfy two groups that were vocal critics of the committee's inquest: Those who thought a failure to investigate Clemens' challenges to former Sen. George Mitchell's report on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, next to the federal indictment issued against Barry Bonds, signified a racist double-standard; and those who thought Congress had no business investigating baseball's drug problem to begin with.
"We haven't heard anything one way or the other," Rusty Hardin, one of Clemens' lawyers, replied when asked yesterday if he considered a criminal referral to be imminent.
A Justice Department investigation could lead Clemens into the kind of lengthy, expensive and serious criminal investigation that Bonds has undergone, opening the door to the government to examine the pitcher's claims with much broader investigative power than the committee's attorneys used.
Jeff Novitzky and Matthew Parrella, the IRS special agent and assistant United States Attorney, respectively, who have spent five years leading the government's prosecution of the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO), already are looking into the challenges Clemens made against McNamee, their pivotal cooperating witness.
Beyond the photograph, the BALCO busters would presumably look at the blood-stained medical refuse that McNamee saved for seven years, as well as the abscess on Clemens' buttocks and radically contradictory testimony that emerged from the last month's hearings and depositions.
Novitzky and Parrella are known to be looking into at least one gym in the Houston area that may have distributed performance-enhancing drugs to ballplayers. On Sunday, The News revealed that 1-on-1 Elite Personal Fitness, a gym in Pasadena, Tex., owned by a distant relative of Andy Pettitte named Kelly Blair, had supplied human growth hormone to Pettitte's father, who then shared it with the Yankee pitcher in 2004.
Blair's gym existed outside of any of the sources of performance-enhancing drugs that were identified in the Mitchell Report. Following The News' report, photographs of professional athletes associated from the Blair were removed from the gym's Web site.
McNamee, a former trainer for Clemens, began cooperating with the BALCO busters almost a year ago. His proffer agreement with Novitzky and Parrella - who had linked him to illegal drug deals, and could hold a prison term over his head - required that he cooperate with investigators and Sen. Mitchell. But it also obligated the two federal agents to follow the leads he gave them, at the very least to verify the accuracy of McNamee's claims.
The case, which could last for years, might result in a United States attorney presenting a case to a grand jury and potentially seeking a federal indictment. No U.S. attorney's office is more likely to adopt the Clemens-McNamee dispute than the Northern District of California, the office that has handled most of the government's recent prosecution of sports doping.
this guy should see some jail time. maybe he could be Berry Bonds' gf?
