Stephen Barcelo for New York Daily News
Brian McNamee says he stored medical waste in New York home from 2001 to 2008.
WASHINGTON Roger Clemens defense attorneys telegraphed their strategy for the pitchers upcoming perjury trial in a two-hour hearing Friday: they will attack the medical waste former trainer Brian McNamee says he saved after injecting Clemens with drugs in 2001.
They also appeared to point at sealed documents in McNamees divorce proceedings, suggesting the documents undermine the evidence, which the goverment says proves Clemens lied to Congress in 2008 when he denied using performance-enhancing drugs.
McNamees divorce proceedings appear to be the subject of a mysterious notice that prosecutors filed on Thursday, referring to their own effort to get the documents sealed last month. While trying to persuade federal judge Reggie Walton to lift the seal, attorneys for Clemens dropped hints about the court papers contents.
Information about McNamee, his spouse and that household would be useful to Clemens defense, said attorney Michael Attanasio, referring to the New York home where McNamee says he stored the waste from 2001 to 2008.
Such information would be fundamental to chain-of-custody issues, said Attanasio, signaling the defense teams intention to raise doubts about the medical wastes history. The evidence is central to the governments case, and prosecutors claim they found Clemens DNA in the barrel of a steroid-laced needle.
Clemens chief attorney, Ru sty Hardin, said he had very strong doubts that the government could prove the chain of custody, though experts have said it wold be hard to falsify such material.
The Clemens trial begins with jury selection on Monday. The pitcher, who was not present Friday, faces six felony charges related to 2008 congressional testimony in which he denied using steroids and human growth hormone. If convicted, he may face prison, given Waltons reputation for tough sentencing.
In the past, Clemens legal team has gone so far as to say that McNamee manufactured the medical waste, which included bloodstained gauze, tissues and needles stuffed into a Miller Lite beer can. The attorneys later backed away from those claims as they attempted to get a defamation suit McNamee filed against Clemens dismissed, saying they werent serious, but they are expected to revive them again, along with chain of custody issues.
It is unclear what McNamees estranged wife, Ei leen McNamee, has told investigators about her knowledge of allegedly incriminating evidence sitting in her own basement. Clemens chief attorney, Rusty Hardin, said last summer that her account is inconsistent with that of McNamees. The former trainer presented the materials to federal agents in 2008.
Eight months have passed since a mistake by prosecutors led Walton to declare a mistrial in a previous attempt to try Clemens on the charges of perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice. Hardin complained to Walton that prosecutors had used the time as an opportunity to conduct 50 new interviews. Fridays hearing also covered a host of pre-trial motions in which the defense and prosecution complained about comments that lawyers on the other side made during last summers short-lived trial, both during jury selection and opening statements.
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