McNamee to Testify This Week in Clemens Trial at LinesMaker

Brian McNamee, the strength trainer who told Con­gress he injected Clemens with performance-enhancing drugs on numer­ous occa­sions and saved evi­dence he and the gov­ern­ment con­tend proves it, is due on the stand early in the week for what is expected to be the most dra­matic tes­ti­mony of the trial. With the defense poised to attack McNamee’s cred­i­bil­ity, deci­sions about the government’s star wit­ness – and the key wit­ness who tes­ti­fied last week, Yan­kees pitcher Andy Pet­titte – are about to land in Judge Reg­gie Walton’s hands. Unbe­knownst to the jurors who ulti­mately will decide the case, the sta­tus of tes­ti­mony from not only McNamee but also Pet­titte will be decided by Wal­ton after hear­ing argu­ments out of the jury’s presence.

The key ques­tions: Just how much will the defense be allowed to delve into McNamee’s “prior bad acts,” as the pros­e­cu­tion has called them, his divorce pro­ceed­ings and other aspects that could dam­age the cred­i­bil­ity of the only per­son claim­ing direct knowl­edge of Clemens’ use of performance-enhancing drugs? Will the admis­sion by Pet­titte that he’s uncer­tain whether he mis­un­der­stood Clemens or he in fact heard Clemens admit to tak­ing human-growth hor­mone dur­ing a work­out prior to the 2000 sea­son cause his tes­ti­mony about the con­ver­sa­tion to be stricken from the trial?

The res­o­lu­tion of those issues and the much-anticipated pres­ence of McNamee in the same court­room with Clemens – and his defense team – will make this a piv­otal week in the pro­ceed­ings. Clemens is being tried on six fed­eral charges of per­jury, giv­ing false state­ments and obstruc­tion of Con­gress stem­ming from his Feb. 5, 2008, depo­si­tion and his Feb. 13, 2008, appear­ance before the House Com­mit­tee on Over­sight and Gov­ern­ment Reform, dur­ing which he denied ever using performance-enhancing drugs. McNamee tes­ti­fied before Con­gress that he injected Clemens with steroids and human-growth hor­mone on numer­ous occa­sions, and that he saved phys­i­cal evi­dence he says proves it. That evi­dence was shown to the jury last week when fed­eral agent Jeff Novitzky was giv­ing direct tes­ti­mony under ques­tion­ing from Assis­tant U.S. Attor­ney Steven Durham. Novitzky tes­ti­fied to receiv­ing the evi­dence in Jan­u­ary 2008, and he described in great detail the vials of steroids and HGH, syringes, appar­ently blood­stained cot­ton balls and other med­ical waste McNamee says he kept in a 16-ounce beer can since 2001. Novitzky will be on the stand as the trial recon­venes Mon­day to com­plete redi­rect exam­i­na­tion by Durham. He’ll be fol­lowed by Fed­eral Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion agent John Long­mire, the lead case agent who has over­seen the gath­er­ing of evi­dence against Clemens and who likely will fur­ther set up the con­nec­tion between the evi­dence and Clemens, which the gov­ern­ment con­tends was con­firmed via DNA test­ing. McNamee won’t tes­tify until Wal­ton lays down the ground rules on what is rel­e­vant to the case. Lawyers for both McNamee and his ex-wife have filed motions to quash a sub­poena issued by Clemens’ defense team for doc­u­ments from their divorce, and Wal­ton is expected to rule on those motions some­time Monday.

The defense still hopes to expand the extent of McNamee’s per­sonal and pro­fes­sional his­tory that can be shown to the jury. Last week, Pettitte’s tes­ti­mony went gen­er­ally as planned for the pros­e­cu­tion until the last min­utes of his cross-examination by defense attor­ney Michael Attana­sio, who is rep­re­sent­ing Clemens along with Hardin. Attana­sio asked Pet­titte if it was fair to say that he’s “50–50″ on his rec­ol­lec­tion of the con­ver­sa­tion about HGH, and Pet­titte said, “I’d say that’s fair.” As soon as Pet­titte left the stand, the defense moved to strike his rec­ol­lec­tion of the con­ver­sa­tion, and Wal­ton sug­gested the pros­e­cu­tion did not reha­bil­i­tate its wit­ness in redi­rect exam­i­na­tion. The pros­e­cu­tion asked for 48 hours to respond to the motion to strike the tes­ti­mony. “My under­stand­ing is that at this time he’s con­flicted, he didn’t know if Mr. Clemens said that to him,” Wal­ton said of Pettitte.