NEW YORK - Internal Revenue Service investigators involved in Roger Clemens’ perjury case are now turning their attention to the Houston, Texas area to see if the seven-time Cy Young award winner obtained steroids or human growth hormone there.

According to a report in Friday’s New York Times, IRS agents have contacted a former employee of Shaun Kelley Weight Control to ask about the operation and whether Clemens knew the owner, Shaun K. Kelley. The Houston-based business is located three miles from the former pitcher’s home.

Clemens is currently being investigated for perjury after contradicting statements under oath to Congress. In speaking with Congress, Clemens denied that former trainer Brian McNamee injected him with performance-enhancing drugs several times between 1998 and 2001.

Two lawyers familiar with the government investigation of Clemens’ statements told the Times that IRS agents, including Special Agent Jeff Novitzky, are scrutinizing Kelley but have not yet interviewed him, nor ruled out other possibilities.

The article states that Novitzky, who is leading the perjury investigation and has spent the past 5½ years investigating the distribution of performance-enhancing drugs in professional sports, is interested in questioning Kelley as well as a number of people in Houston.

Kelley first told the Times that Clemens was “an acquaintance” and that he had only met him once, but later said he met him “a couple” of times.

Kelley denied that he was involved with performance-enhancing drugs, but he has advertised HGH on his web site and in 2005 his e-mail address appeared in an online inquiry about purchasing the hormone from a Chinese company, according to the report.

The report states that in 2002, Kelley’s web site advertised the sale of supplements, which included antiaging, weight-gain and weight-loss products, as well as “growth hormone.”

Kelley said he did not actually sell HGH but referred clients to doctors who could.

The 46-year-old Kelley referred several clients to Houston psychiatrist, Dr. Lisa C Routh, who, on one occasion, prescribed testosterone and an anabolic steroid following a blood test to a client who had been referred to Routh before even beginning a workout regimen at the center.

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The former employee told the Times that Clemens had visited Kelley’s center in the past few years and that Clemens came in, explained he was Kelley’s friend, waited for the owner to finish speaking to a client and then entered Kelley’s office and stayed for about 20 minutes.

Kelley has denied this claim.

“I have never seen Clemens in my store, ever,” he told the Times. “This is all totally false.”

Three other former employees of the center in addition to Routh told the Times that Kelley had boasted of a friendship with Clemens, but that he also had been known to exaggerate the truth.

One of those employees, Shaun Eckhardt, who worked there for six months before recently quitting, told the Times that Kelley “would always say they were good friends.”

Kelley also told the paper that he had taken HGH.

“I did have human-growth-hormone deficiency and I qualified to have it,” he told the Times. “I haven’t done that in years.”

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