Can a ten year old incident at the Vinoy in St. Pete save Roger Clemens?

Newspapers like the St. Pete Times originally reported in late October of 2001 the sordid story of a member of the New York Yankees organization who was accused of essentially drugging a woman he met at the Vinoy and then sexually assaulting her in the hotel swimming pool.

The New York Daily News reported last week that attorneys for Roger Clemens intend to link that incident as a motive for McNamee to later claim the former pitcher used performance-enhancing drug.

Huh?

The story is/was out there, and is something that McNamee will also have to deal with the rest of his life. McNamee was never charged in the incident, but did admit that he lied to St. Petersburg authorities who investigated it.

Prosecutors reportedly filed a motion last month asking the arbiter in the case, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, to restrict Clemens' questioning of McNamee about the investigation during cross-examination or introducing evidence that the trainer assaulted the woman. Prosecutors said the issue could become a "sideshow" that would unfairly prejudice the jury against McNamee but, according to the Daily News, said that he could be asked about lying to investigators.

"One can no more tell the true story of Mr. McNamee and Mr. Clemens without mentioning the Florida incident than one can tell the story of Jack and the Beanstalk without the beans," the filing said. "Brian McNamee is the only one in the entire world who has ever alleged that he witnessed Mr. Clemens using performance-enhancing drugs at any time in his storied career ... At the very least, this pattern of behavior establishes a motive and plan by Mr. McNamee to lie in 2007 when pressured by federal law enforcement personnel to name Mr. Clemens as a steroid user."

Not only does Judge Walton have to decide whether to allow that into his court, but whether or not to grant Clemens wishes and not allow what some analysts say would be a critical witness against him to testify, his former teammate with the Yankees and Houston Astros, Andy Pettitte, who said in a deposition that Clemens told him he had used HGH.

On the first day of jury selection, among the potential witnesses who may testify, prosecutors and defense attorneys listed these names as possible witnessed during the trial : Barry Bonds, Jorge Posada,Rafael Palmeiro, Jose Canseco (a former teammate of Clemens who has always insisted that he never saw Clemens take any drug) and former Democratic U.S. Senator from Maine, George Mitchell.