Kurt Busch testifies ex-girlfriend is a trained assassin: Report

During a court hearing about a request for a protective order against him, NASCAR driver Kurt Busch claimed that his former girlfriend is a trained assassin. 

The race car driver known as "The Outlaw" testified Tuesday he believes Patricia Driscoll is a trained killer dispatched on covert missions around the world who once returned from a trip wearing a blood-splattered gown. 

Driscoll, who dated Busch for four years, requested the order last November, shortly after their relationship ended.

"Everybody on the outside can tell me I'm crazy, but I lived on the inside and saw it firsthand," Kurt Busch said when his attorney, Rusty Hardin, questioned why he still believed she is a hired killer.

The 36-year-old Busch, appearing in the Dover, Del. court over Driscoll's request for the no-contact order, continued to discredit his ex as a scorned woman out to destroy his career, portraying her as a character fit for a movie.

On Tuesday, Busch said that Driscoll had claimed that a female character in "Zero Dark Thirty," a film depicting the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden, was a composite of her and other women.

Busch said Driscoll repeatedly asserted her assassin status and claimed the work took her on "covert missions across Central and South America and Africa." He recounted one time when the couple was in El Paso, Texas. He said Driscoll left in camouflage gear only to return later wearing a trench coat over an evening gown covered with blood.

A day earlier, Busch said his ex-girlfriend told him she was a mercenary who killed people for a living and had shown him pictures of bodies with gunshot wounds.

"These statements made about being a trained assassin, hired killer, are ludicrous and without basis and are an attempt to destroy my credibility," Driscoll said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Not even Rusty Hardin believes this."

"I find it interesting that some of the outlandish claims come straight from a fictional movie script I've been working on for eight years," Driscoll added.

Driscoll has also filed a criminal complaint against Busch, alleging that he grabbed her and slammed her head three times into the wall of his motor coach at Dover International Speedway last fall. Busch denies those claims, which the authorities have been investigating separately.

Busch testified Monday that he decided to end his relationship with Driscoll after a race last fall because she was monopolizing his schedule and he needed to focus on racing.

Judge Denies Clemens' Motion To Prevent 2nd Perjury Trial

A motion by Roger Clemens' defense team to have a judge dismiss the government's case against the former pitcher was denied Friday afternoon, as reported by Fox News.  Clemens' lead attorney Rusty Hardin had asked judge Reggie Walton to forbid another trial following the July hearing in which the judge declared a mistrial after two days of testimony.

According to Fox News, the judge sided with the prosecution and set a date for the second trial.

Hardin accused prosecutors of deliberately sabotaging the case because it was going badly for the government.

During the first trial jurors were shown evidence that was already determined to be inadmissible in court by the judge.

The prosecution team claimed it was a mistake.  Prosecutors-- Steven Durham and Daniel Butler made a critical error by introducing the barred evidence.  They apologized and impelled Walton into giving them another chance.

The evidence in question was a video in which a congressman referred to testimony by Laura Pettitte-- former Yankee Andy Pettitte's wife-- that Walton had barred as second-hand testimony.

In a statement, Walton said," I want to believe it is a mistake.  I would find it hard to believe that they would blatantly disregard a ruling I would make.  But it's hard for me to reach another conclusion."

Hardin, meanwhile, thinks a retrial would be a "reward" for the prosecutors for causing the mistrial in the first place.

Clemens is accused of lying under oath after speaking before a committee about steroid use in 2008.

At that hearing, Clemens testified," No matter what we discuss here, I'm never going to have my name restored.  But I've got to set the record straight.  Let me be clear.  I've never taken steroids or HGH."

Today's decision by judge Walton means that there was no procedural misconduct and it favors the prosecution.

The ruling determined that Clemens will be tried once more for lying under oath.  The trial date is set for April 17.

A guilty verdict would further tarnish the image of one of baseball's greatest pitchers and hinder his chances of getting into Cooperstown.

Hardin said it would take a couple of days to decide if they will file an appeal.