Clemens gets his close-up

WASHINGTON -- While Roger Clemens returned to Capitol Hill on Thursday to proclaim his innocence to House Oversight committee members, former trainer Brian McNamee gave a seven-hour deposition to committee lawyers, implicating Clemens for using performance-enhancing drugs.

At a news conference immediately after that deposition, McNamee’s legal team of Earl Ward, Richard Emery and Mark Paoletta detailed the physical evidence -- given to federal investigators in early January -- that they said corroborates McNamee and proves Clemens guilty of lying under oath when he denied using steroids.

That evidence, presented to the media in two color photographs, consists of needles, vials of testosterone, gauze pads and syringes that McNamee says were used to inject Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone. One photo shows a beer can that McNamee’s lawyers said contained needles and other items associated with injections.

“He’s a New York City cop -- he thinks in terms of evidence,” Emery said of McNamee’s collection. “He got a sense that Roger was not trustworthy and would betray him ultimately. He said about himself that if he was going to get thrown under the bus by Roger, he was going to take Roger with him.”

McNamee did not speak to reporters, and his lawyers said they didn’t know when the items would be tested or when the results would be known.

If traces of blood are found, Clemens could be asked by federal investigators to submit a DNA sample. But in a news conference 45 minutes after McNamee’s team finished their presentation, Clemens’ lead attorney, Rusty Hardin, said that would not be a problem and again denied that Clemens had ever used banned substances.

“I can tell you now that what you’re about to see is the second edition of the Duke [lacrosse] case,” Hardin said, referring to the discredited rape allegations against some members of the team. “I’ve warned you all now. Five or six or seven months from now, any of you that have jumped on this bandwagon about Roger taking steroids and assume anything that Brian McNamee says is the truth will be embarrassed. This is a fabricated story.

“Any time that federal authorities make a request [for DNA], we’ll be glad to provide it for them. But they’re going to have to talk to us. It’s not going to be McNamee with a bunch of pictures of waste.”

Hardin said the evidence would be a positive turning point in Clemens’ case.

“Yesterday was a good day for Roger because it really revealed this guy for what he is, and rather than being upset I was absolutely delighted,” he said. “How do you deal with someone who comes out with a psycho thing like sitting on a syringe for nine years? Find a prosecutor or judge who would ever see this as evidence. This is waste material. . . . He’s a troubled man.”

University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias, however, said it might be too soon to consider the evidence inadmissible.

“[The evidence] is pretty stale,” Tobias said. “I’m not a scientist, but I think people are dubious as to the value it has. But the court of public opinion is much less rigorous than a prosecutor, judge or the court of law. It’s very possible for a prosecutor to decide it should be admitted and bring it before a judge, and from there it will be the judge’s call to say whether it’s admissible.”

Doping experts said that while steroids could still be detected in a sample that old, problems could arise in proving that the traces of DNA and steroids came at the same time.

“DNA will stay forever on a syringe,” Eric Kutscher, associate professor of pharmacy at South Dakota State University, said. “The problem is, there’s no way to find or tell how long [steroids] were there with it.”

Don Catlin, a Los Angeles anti-doping researcher, said the situation was murkier with HGH because it hasn’t been studied well in that regard.

McNamee chose not to discuss the physical evidence with investigators for former Senator George Mitchell as he compiled his December report on drug use in baseball. But according to his attorneys, McNamee’s mood changed when Clemens played a tape of a secretly reported telephone conversation. The conversation took place between McNamee and Clemens on Jan. 4 and was played at Clemens’ Jan. 7 news conference in Houston.

On Jan. 10, McNamee met with IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitzky in New York and turned over the evidence to federal prosecutors.

“That was a decision Brian made because he didn’t want to bury Roger Clemens,” Ward said. “ . . . But after that phone call on Jan. 4, which was then played on national TV, he decided there was a betrayal because Roger brought out his son’s medical condition on national TV. And that point he decided it was no holds barred, and he released this information.”

McNamee, flanked by his legal team, arrived on the first floor of the Rayburn House Office Building on Thursday at the same time Clemens met with committee members just one floor above him.

Clemens went door-to-door to begin those individual visits with numerous members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to proclaim his innocence.

“He wanted to assure them privately what he assured publicly: that he didn’t take steroids and didn’t take human growth hormone,” Hardin said.

Clemens already has five visits scheduled for today, and Hardin said the seven-time Cy Young Award winner was open to adding as many as necessary to accommodate committee members who want to speak with him before Wednesday’s hearing. The committee consists of 41 members, and Clemens’ interview schedule stands at 17.

“It went fine,” Clemens said after his first meeting of the day, with Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass). “I’m ready for Wednesday to get here.”

But to McNamee’s team, the meetings were a case of Clemens using his fame in an attempt to influence committee members. “We think it’s inappropriate,” Ward said. “It sounds like a lot of lobbying and advocating.”

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ben.dubose@latimes.com