Clemens Will Talk to Reporters
The lead attorney for Roger Clemens said Tuesday night that he and other attorneys working for his firm have begun their own investigation into allegations that link Clemens to the use of steroids and human growth hormone.
In addition, Rusty Hardin said Clemens plans on meeting with members of the media on Jan. 6, the same night an interview with Mike Wallace is scheduled to air on CBS’s “60 Minutes.” In the interview, Clemens is expected to defend himself against the allegations published in George J. Mitchell’s report on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.
Hardin said the investigation of the allegations had found several individuals had not spoken with Mitchell’s investigators, but who were around Clemens during the time in which he is alleged to have been using illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
“We are convinced the conclusions in Mitchell’s report are wrong and are investigating the findings ourselves,” Hardin said in a telephone interview. “At this stage we have uncovered a lot of logical people who we thought Mitchell was going to talk to but never talked to him or his investigators. That’s troubling.”
Hardin would not name any of those individuals, but he said that they would have been very helpful to Mitchell about whether to publish the allegations about Roger, he said.
In Mitchell’s report, which was released nearly three weeks ago, Clemens’s former trainer Brian McNamee said he injected the pitcher with steroids and H.G.H. 16 times when he played for the Toronto Blue Jays in 1998 and for the Yankees in 2000 and 2001.
McNamee, who worked with Clemens until last season, had been compelled to cooperate with Mitchell in an agreement with federal prosecutors to avoid being charged with steroid distribution.
In Mitchell’s report, McNamee also implicated another of his clients, Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte, saying he used H.G.H. Pettitte has since confirmed McNamee’s statements, and said he used it for “two days” in order to speed his recovery from an elbow injury.
McNamee’s lawyer, Earl Ward, has said his client stands by his statements to Mitchell about Clemens.
Up until this point, Clemens’s denials of Mitchell’s findings have either been issued by Hardin, by Clemens’s agent, or have come in the form of a short video posted on Clemens’s personal Web site.
The interview with Wallace will be the first in which Clemens answers questions directly from a reporter, albeit Wallace, a frequent guest in the owner’s suite at Yankee Stadium, who has described himself as a friend of Clemens. An open-ended session with a group of reporters would be seen as a more challenging forum for Clemens.
“After ‘60 Minutes’ airs he will be sitting down to answer questions directly to members of the media,” Hardin said. “We haven’t figured out where it will happen but he will answer questions that night.”
Hardin said the interview with Wallace was scheduled to take place this week at Clemens’s home in Katy, Tex.
In all of Clemens denials so far he has said that he never used steroids or human growth hormone but has not specifically addressed whether McNamee ever injected him with other substances.
When asked if Clemens would admit that he was injected by McNamee but did not believe at the time it was steroids or human growth hormone, Hardin said Clemens would answer that question if asked by Wallace or reporters.
“The answer to that question and others will be resolved by Roger when he talks,” Hardin said. “He’ll be more than glad to answer those questions to Wallace and others.”
News source：http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/26/sports/baseball/27clemens.html?ref=baseball
0 意見:
張貼留言