Roger Clemens charged with perjury in steroid case

A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens for allegedly lying to Congress about using steroids.

Clemens faces charges of obstruction of Congress, making false statements and perjury.

The former Major League baseball pitcher and his former trainer, Brian McNamee, testified under oath at a 2008 hearing before a House committee and contradicted each other about whether Clemens had used the banned substances.

McNamee has told federal agents, baseball investigator George Mitchell and the committee that he injected Clemens more than a dozen times with steroids and human growth hormone from 1998 to 2001.

Clemens has maintained that McNamee was lying.

Clemens' attorney, Rusty Hardin, said by telephone from Houston that he had just learned of the indictment and would wait to decide whether to comment.

The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, the judge who presided over the perjury and obstruction trial of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. No date has been set for Clemens' initial court appearance.

In a defiant appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in 2008, Clemens said, "I've been accused of something I'm not guilty of ... I have never taken steroids or HGH."

Longtime Clemens friend and pitching star Andy Pettite told congressional investigators that Clemens confided to him that he had used human growth hormone. Clemens said Pettite's assertion wasn't correct.

"I believe Andy has misheard" the conversation, Clemens responded. He said he had simply mentioned to Pettite a TV show about three older men who used HGH to get back their quality of life.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)