Roger Clemens may never make it into the Hall of Fame, but the legendary pitcher doesn’t need to worry any longer about making it through a prison sentence, either. He has been acquitted on all counts of lying to a grand jury. Clemens was on trial for six counts of perjury, stemming from a 2008 statement in front of Congress that he never took steroids or Human Growth Hormone. Since then, however, the hurler has been linked to performance-enhancing drugs in a special report filed by ex-senator George Mitchell and also by his former close friend and personal trainer, Brian McNamee, the latter of whom told the House committee that he injected Clemens several times with illicit substances. But Clemens remained adamant that he believed those substances to be B-12 and lidocaine, neither of which is illegal. This trial (the second for Clemens after one was declared a mistrial due to the handling of evidence last July) lasted for seven weeks and included testimony from Clemens’ wife, who admitted that she had been injected with HGH; and also from Andy Pettitte, the New York Yankees pitcher who backed off previous testimony in which he implicated his friend as a drug user. Despite the verdict, it is widely believed that Clemens did use steroids of some kind over the back half of his career and his legacy will forever be tarnished as a result. UPDATE : Said Clemens in a news conference soon afterward, choking up: “I’m very thankful. It’s been a hard five years.”
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Roger Clemens Found Not Guilty on All Perjury Charges
