Prosecution and Defense Make Final Arguments in Clemens Case Jonathan Ernst/Reuters Stacey Manela, a member of Roger Clemens's defense team, left the courthouse with photographs used as evidence. WASHINGTON - In a final plea to jurors in the Roger Clemens perjury trial, prosecutors on Tuesday urged a conviction, saying it was obvious that Clemens had lied to Congress about his performance-enhancing drug use and concocted an elaborate cover-up to save his reputation. "He had to protect his name," Assistant United States Attorney Gilberto Guerrero said of Clemens, one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history. He had to keep his secret safe, so they wouldn't find out the truth about Roger Clemens, so they would not find out the truth about Major League Baseball. In the ninth week of the trial, Guerrero told the jury of eight women and four men: "Now it's your turn to hold him accountable on every single count. You are the final umpires here. Before beginning deliberations on Tuesday, the jurors heard starkly different summations of the latest case that highlights the drug problems in baseball and other sports. Clemens's lawyers insisted that the government failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt and had no business prosecuting Clemens anyway. "What happened in this case is a horrible, horrible overreach of the government and everyone involved," said Rusty Hardin, Clemens's lead lawyer. They haven't been in search of the truth. They've been in search of a conviction. Clemens sat silently at the defense table. His wife, Debbie, and four sons were in the packed courtroom, shaking their heads or nodding, depending which lawyers were addressing the jury. At times, they rolled their eyes or put their arms around each other. The 49-year-old Clemens and his family have a lot at stake. He is charged with obstructing Congress, making false statements and perjury when he told Congress in 2008 that he never used steroids or human growth hormone, substances now banned by Major League Baseball. If convicted on all counts, Clemens faces a maximum of 30 years in prison. The government also has plenty to lose, considering that this is its second try at convicting Clemens. His initial trial ended in a mistrial last spring after prosecutors blundered by showing inadmissible evidence. This time, though, prosecutors presented a meticulous case at sometimes excruciating length. Jurors heard 46 witnesses over 26 days of testimony from both sides. The trial moved so slowly that two jurors were dismissed for sleeping in court. The gist of the defense revolved around Brian McNamee, the prosecution's lead witness, who Clemens's lawyers said "cooked the books" to set up Clemens for a fall. McNamee, Clemens's former trainer, said he injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone. Clemens said McNamee injected him only with the vitamin B12 and the painkiller lidocaine. McNamee also is the sole witness who said he had firsthand knowledge of Clemens's drug use. Michael Attanasio, one of Clemens's lawyers, said it was laughable for the government's case to hang on McNamee, a man who has lied to federal agents and constantly changed details of his story about Clemens. "Brian McNamee defines reasonable doubt," Attanasio said. Hardin had even harsher words. He showed jurors a chart listing more than two dozen times McNamee said something that could be construed as a mistake, a lie or a misstatement based on bad memory. "Not one single bit of evidence for four and a half years of anybody other than Brian McNamee connecting Roger Clemens to steroids and H.G.H.," Hardin said. My God, if you're going to go to this kind of effort to prove this man lied to Congress, you'd better come home with some kind of bacon! Not a zilch! Each side had more than two hours to give its closing statements. During their time, prosecutors conceded that McNamee is "pretty flawed" and "a drug dealer," but asked jurors why Clemens would work with a man like that when he could have worked with any doctor he wanted. Their answer? For steroids and growth hormone. Prosecutors also said that Clemens had made up "a cover story" when he said that McNamee had only injected him with B12 and lidocaine. That lie crumbled, they said, when syringes and cotton balls McNamee had saved from injecting Clemens had Clemens's DNA on them, but no evidence of B12 or lidocaine. In the end, the government and the defense both begged jurors to side with them. Hardin asked them to find Clemens not guilty so Clemens could finally "start his life back." Courtney Saleski, an assistant United States attorney, asked them to vote guilty so Congress can finally "get that truth back."