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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, July 1, 2009

MLB: Texas judge affirms dismissal in Clemens' suit


Associated Press

NEW YORK — A federal judge in Texas reaffirmed his original dismissal of most of the claims in Roger Clemens' defamation suit against former trainer Brian McNamee, the New York Daily News reported Wednesday.

The decision clears the way for McNamee to pursue his own defamation suit against the former seven-time Cy Young Award winner.

In his opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Keith Ellison wrote that "if (Clemens) believes that the federal investigators or the Mitchell Commission overstepped the bounds of the law, he is free to bring suit against those enemies, subject to possible immunity." He added that the court was only concerned about McNamee's behavior and did not accept Clemens' invitation to thwart the government's allegedly 'coercive' behavior by punishing McNamee, who was the target of that behavior.

The Mitchell Commission was headed by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to look into performance-enchancing drug use in baseball.

McNamee has told federal agents, Mitchell and a House committee that he injected Clemens more than a dozen times with steroids and human growth hormone from 1998-2001.

Clemens has denied using performance-enchancing drugs.

Clemens is under investigation by a federal grand jury in Washington that is trying to determine whether he lied when he told a congressional committee that he had not used illegal performance-enhancing drugs. Clemens said he had not been summoned to testify before the grand jury.

Ellison said that Clemens could bolster his claim that McNamee defamed him by discussing performance-enhancing drug use with former Yankees teammate Andy Pettitte, who testified about the conversation to Congress.

"This is the final nail in Clemens' Texas coffin," Richard Emery, McNamee's defamation attorney told the Daily News. "We will welcome him to New York to litigate. We'll file a complaint by the end of July on defamation and other claims by McNamee."