Thursday, March 19, 2015

Roger Clemens Settles Suit

Saying he would fight to the end, Roger Clemens threw in the towel and agreed to settle the suit of former trainer, Brian McNamee.

Statement Analysis showed that Clemens was deceptive in his denials about both steroid use, and HGH (Human Growth Hormone) use.

From the NY Daily News:

Roger Clemens pays Brian McNamee to settle defamation suit, putting end to seven-year war

Roger Clemens reaches a settlement with former trainer Brian McNamee to end a 7-year legal battle.Seth Wenig/AP

Roger Clemens reaches a settlement with former trainer Brian McNamee to end a 7-year legal battle.

The seven-year war between Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee appears to be over.
The former Yankee superstar agreed to settle the defamation lawsuit McNamee filed against him in 2009 on Wednesday for an undisclosed amount, seven years after Clemens called his former trainer “disturbed” and claimed he had manufactured evidence of steroid injections.
“I’m going to go home and digest it,” said McNamee as he left the courthouse, declining to comment further beyond praising his attorneys, Richard Emery and Earl Ward.
Lawyers for Clemens and McNamee hammered out an agreement in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District in Brooklyn Wednesday night, and while Clemens’ attorney said his client “didn’t contribute” to the settlement, it is clear the former pitcher’s insurers pressed for a settlement rather than face more financial exposure had the case gone to trial as scheduled in October.
“He had a homeowners policy that covered everything,” said Emery. “We are very pleased and look forward to the next chapter in Brian’s life.”
“The war is over,” added Ward.
Brian McNamee leaves Brooklyn Federal Court after he reached a settlement in the defamation suit he filed against Roger Clemens on Wednesday.
Jesse Ward/for New York Daily News

Brian McNamee leaves Brooklyn Federal Court after he reached a settlement in the defamation suit he filed against Roger Clemens on Wednesday.

Clemens was not at the courthouse. His attorney, Chip Babcock, said the insurance company AIG negotiated the settlement with McNamee. AIG is not commenting on the settlement.
“Roger Clemens did not contribute a penny to the settlement,” Babcock said. “Nor did he release any claims against Mr. McNamee.”
Babcock told the Daily News last month after a status conference in Brooklyn that two insurance policies, each for a half-million dollars, might determine whether there was a deal.
“If the insurance company wants to pay Mr. McNamee, there is not much I can do about that,” Babcock said that day.
Clemens has spent millions on his seven-year legal battle against charges that he used steroids during his long, illustrious career, including fighting federal criminal charges that he lied to Congress in a 2008 hearing on steroids and a defamation suit he filed against McNamee that wound its way through the federal courts and was finally dismissed by a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2010.
Brian McNamee (r.) claims to have injected Roger Clemens with steroids while working together.Brett Coomer/Polaris

Brian McNamee (r.) claims to have injected Roger Clemens with steroids while working together.

By then, McNamee had sued Clemens for defamation after Clemens and his lawyers claimed that McNamee was “disturbed” and had manufactured evidence of steroid injections — bloody needles and gauze that McNamee said he had saved in a box in his basement after injecting Clemens with steroids in 2001.
McNamee has been in a legal war with Clemens since 2007, when federal agents cornered him with evidence of his drug distribution and forced him to cooperate with former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell’s probe of Major League Baseball’s doping problems. The report was peppered with references to Clemens’ longtime steroid and human growth hormone use.
In 2008, McNamee turned over the medical waste to federal prosecutors. An FBI lab found traces of steroids and of Clemens’ DNA on the evidence. McNamee testified that he saved the evidence, secured in an empty beer can, because a gut feeling told him that Clemens would turn on him if investigators ever came around.
The former Bombers fireballer made a surprise appearance in Brooklyn Federal Court in February during the status conference. He made no comment that day as he left the courthouse wearing a University of Texas Longhorns windbreaker against 10-degree cold, telling a reporter who snapped his picture to “beat it.”
U.S. District Court Judge Sterling Johnson let the parties know in the February conference that he was clearly irritated with the slow pace of the litigation, which had been put on hold when the government charged Clemens with perjury for lying to Congress during the hearings that followed the Mitchell Report. He was acquitted of the criminal charges in 2012 after a two-month trial. “This is a very old case. It should have been resolved among the parties or it should have been tried,” Johnson said.
Brian McNamee sues Roger Clemens for defamation in 2009.Seth Wenig/AP

Brian McNamee sues Roger Clemens for defamation in 2009.

Clemens’ legal team had been behind in the count after the court ruled that lawyers had repeatedly delayed turning over contested correspondence between Clemens, his PR firm and his agents that Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollak had ruled was fair game and should be turned over to McNamee. The status conference came a day after Clemens’ attorneys agreed to a resolution of sanctions sought by Emery and Ward.
Clemens had already been ordered to pay McNamee’s attorneys’ fees in the discovery dispute, although whether Clemens or his insurers paid the fees was not made public.
Regardless, McNamee had to have felt a measure of vindication.
“I got to digest this,” he said. “I got to go home and have a good meal. Let me sit with it.” 


2 comments:

John Mc Gowan said...

OT:

Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu Tells NBC: U.S. Has 'No Greater Ally'

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that relations with the U.S. were strong even if he had yet to hear from President Barack Obama about his election win, telling NBC News on Thursday that Washington has "no greater ally" than Israel.

Netanyahu's already-strained relationship with the U.S. frayed further in recent weeks when the prime minister spoke in Congress against a nuclear deal with Iran and — on the eve of the election — pledged to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.

In his first American broadcast-network interview since winning close-fought parliamentary elections, Netanyahu told NBC News' Andrea Mitchell that while he has yet to speak with President Barack Obama he was "sure" they would be in touch soon.

"There are so many areas where we must work together, will work together with the United States and the president, because we have no other alternative," he said. "America has no greater ally than Israel and Israel has no greater ally than the United States."

The prime minister also dismissed allegations that he was a racist following comments about Arab voter turnout during the election, saying simply: "I'm not."

Mitchell's interview with Netanyahu will air on "NBC Nightly News" on Thursday evening.

IN-DEPTH

Will Netanyahu's Victory Stall Peace Process?
White House 'Deeply Concerned' About Netanyahu's Party Rhetoric
Netanyahu Wins Big — But At What Cost?

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/netanyahu-nbc-u-s-has-no-greater-ally-israel-n326391

Anonymous said...

anybody on here watch the Jinx???