Roger Clemens’ former personal trainer – the man who ratted out the Rocket to the feds over alleged steroid use – is suing his ex-client for $10 million, claiming the former Yankee hurler defamed him.
Brian McNamee says Clemens libeled and slandered him in comments after the Mitchell Report on steroid use in baseball was published.
The summons, filed in Queens Supreme Court last week, demands Clemens pony up the massive payout for intentionally inflicting emotional distress on McNamee.
It’s been a nightmarish p.r. year for the seven-time Cy Young winner since the release of the Mitchell report last December, in which McNamee said that for several years he regularly injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone.
Clemens went on “60 Minutes” in January and denied McNamee’s claims.
The next day he sued McNamee in Texas, saying the ex-trainer was “malicious and grossly negligent.”
In February, Clemens told a congressional committee under oath that he had never taken steroids.
The allegations made Clemens radioactive and no team would sign him after he went 6-6 in pinstripes in 2007.
In April, reports surfaced that Clemens had a long-running affair with country music singer Mindy McCready, who was an underage teen when the romance allegedly began in 1991.
McCready was hospitalized last week after she cut her wrists and took several pills in an apparent suicide attempt at her home in Nashville.
In the federal case in Texas, McNamee’s lawyers filed papers saying their client was forced to sing under threat of prosecution – rendering him immune from defamation lawsuits.
A federal prosecutor backed up McNamee’s contention, but a judge has yet to rule on his request to toss the case.
Clemens has a month to respond to the Queens lawsuit.
Neither his lawyer nor McNamee’s lawyer immediately responded to a call for comment.