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Clemens said wife was injected with HGH

BY MIKE ROSE | michael.rose@newsday.com

11:40 PM EST, February 13, 2008

Roger Clemens, who repeatedly told members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform during Wednesday's hearing he has never taken steroids or human growth hormone, implicated his wife for her HGH use in his deposition to committee lawyers last week.

That deposition was released Wednesday.

Clemens, whose wife, Debbie, sat behind him during the hearing Wednesday, testified that his wife took HGH once.

Roger Clemens read a statement about his wife, who did not speak. "She had been broken up over this a long time," Roger Clemens said. "She said she feels like a pawn in his game."

In his deposition, Clemens said he learned about former trainer Brian McNamee giving Debbie an HGH injection the night it happened.

According to Clemens, he wasn't happy when he found out. When asked if he confronted McNamee, he said McNamee, who was staying at the Clemens' Houston home, " ... flew out to go back home or go somewhere. And I called him, and I also called him the next day, because she was still not feeling comfortable, and something about her circulation."

That seems to contradict statements that Clemens previously made that he never talked to McNamee about steroids or HGH.

McNamee gives a very different account in his deposition, also released Wednesday. He claims he injected Debbie Clemens in the winter of 2002 or 2003 with Roger Clemens present.

McNamee says he was in Houston to train Clemens and was staying in accomodations separate from the house. McNamee says he then was called into their house and ended up in Debbie Clemens' bedroom to show her how to inject herself.

According to McNamee's deposition, Roger Clemens told McNamee his wife wanted to use HGH. McNamee showed Debbie Clemens how to inject herself, but it was McNamee who did the injection into her "right belly button side."

Several media reports said last week that Debbie Clemens wanted to use HGH to get ready for a Sports Illustrated photo shoot. In that photo shoot, Debbie Clemens appears in a bikini with her husband.

This story was supplemented with an Associated Press report.