8 Январь 2008 г.

Brian McNamee's lawyers demand release of recorded interview

Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte sent private investigators to conduct a taped interview with Brian McNamee the day before the release of the Mitchell Report. Tapes of the extensive session have not been released by Clemens' camp.

McNamee's attorney, Earl Ward, issued a statement Monday calling for Clemens' attorney Rusty Hardin to release the tapes, as Hardin did with a 17-minute recording of an emotional, profanity-laced conversation between McNamee and Clemens that occurred on Friday night. In that tape, which was played for the media at Clemens' press conference in Houston, McNamee laments the developments that have occurred, saying his son is ill and that he is broke. McNamee said, "I want it to go away. I'm with you in your corner ... but I also don't want to go to jail. It has nothing to do with you. I'd also like to sit down in person with you."

Of the taped interview that took place Dec.12, Ward said in a statement, "Brian told these investigators the same thing he told the federal authorities and Senator Mitchell. And we hearby demand the tape be released in its entirety immediately."

According to Joe Householder, a Hardin assistant, Clemens' attorneys do not plan to release the tape, at least not in the near future. Parts of it are included in the defamation lawsuit Clemens filed in a Texas state court just before the "60 Minutes" report aired Sunday night. "It's an item in the discovery process," Householder told the Daily News. "It'll probably become public during the discovery process."

According to Ward, the Clemens camp may not want to release the tape for another reason: he believes it confirms what McNamee has said all along - that he told investigators and Mitchell the truth about injecting Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone and Pettitte with HGH. Pettitte has confirmed that he took HGH on two occasions.

The tape also brings into question Clemens' statement to Mike Wallace during a "60 Minutes" interview on Sunday that he had no advance knowledge of what McNamee had told Mitchell, although Hardin said during the press conference that McNamee had informed Pettitte and a representative of Clemens' by phone eight days before the Mitchell Report was released that he had spoken to Mitchell and federal investigators. The investigators - a representative from Hardin's law firm and a former Houston homicide officer - arrived to interview McNamee on Wednesday, the day before the report's release, presenting him with documents signed on Dec.11 authorizing them to ask questions on behalf of Clemens and Pettitte.

"They were there strictly to ask him open-ended questions as to what he had said," Householder said. "That was the purpose and he told them what he told Mitchell."

Clemens repeated in his press conference yesterday what he told Wallace - "if I would have known what this man, Brian McNamee, had said in this report, I would have been down in a heartbeat to take care of it."

Said Ward: "Mr. Clemens did in fact know that he was named in the report prior to its release and the only thing he did in a heartbeat was to hire a lawyer prior to the release of Senator Mitchell's report. Brian told the federal authorities the truth. Thereafter Brian met with Senator Mitchell as detailed in the Mitchell Report."

Автор: filinblog на 2:19
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