Team Rocket lost another battle in court today as Federal District Court Judge Keith Ellison reaffirmed his ruling from earlier this year that dismissed most of Roger Clemens’s defamation suit against Brian McNamee. The portions of the suit that had been dismissed dealt with Brian McNamee’s statements to the feds and George Mitchell about Clemens’s steroids/HGH use. And when he originally dismissed those claims, the judge stated that the statements were immune from suit because they were part of a criminal investigation.
In reaffirming that opinion, Ellison stated that he was refusing Rocket’s request to punish McNamee, writing “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 defense. This court, however, is solely concerned with the behavior of (McNamee). The Court will not accept (Clemens’) invitation to thwart the government’s allegedly ‘coercive’ behavior by punishing (McNamee), who was the target of that behavior.”
Still standing is the part of the defamation suit arising from
McNamee’s statements to Andy Pettitte about Clemens using
performance-enhancing drugs. But there’s a slight problem here for
Clemens, in that while McNamee may have told this Pettitte, which would
possibly make the statements defamatory if they were untrue, Pettitte
has testified that he and Clemens discussed Clemens using HGH — that’s
what Pettitte is supposed to have misremembered. There can’t be
defamation if the statements are true, and while it’s not known for
sure if McNamee’s statements are true, the Rocket also can’t sue for
defamation if he actually affirmed to Pettitte that he was taking such
drugs.
And there’s more trouble coming for Clemens as McNamee’s
attorneys stated earlier today, upon hearing of Judge Ellison’s ruling,
that they were going to be filing a defamation suit against Clemens in
New York later this month. “We will welcome him to New York to
litigate,” McNamee attorney Richard Emery told the New York Daily News. “We’ll file a complaint by the end of July on defamation and other claims by McNamee.”
And
while I’m sure Team McNamee is just dying for revenge, I think a
defamation suit against Clemens will be equally difficult for them to
win. Primarily, Team Rocket has accused McNamee of being a drug dealer,
and they have accused him of rape in an incident in Florida when
McNamee was working with for the New York Yankees. As ugly and hurtful
as the statements are, there is a modicum of truth to them, as McNamee
was illegally dispensing drugs in the form of steroids and HGH, and
while no charges were filed against McNamee about the incident in
Florida, he was the primary subject of the police investigation — both
The Rocket That Fell To Earth and American Icon make it
clear that McNamee was guilty of no crime, that he was protecting some
other Yankee players and coaches, and that he probably saved the
woman’s life.
As for the Rocket, just as with every big,
important game he ever pitched in his life, he’s once again being
destroyed and failed to perform in the clutch. I would expect that
he’ll ultimately drop the remaining portion of the defamation suit
against McNamee in order to not be killed in court by Pettitte. And if
he really wants to get his version of the truth out there, he’s
probably just going to have to write that promised book.
This article appears in Jun 25 – Jul 1, 2009.
