Palmeiro won't be prosecuted

File under damage already done: WASHINGTON (AP) Baseball star Rafael Palmeiro will not be prosecuted on perjury charges after lawmakers said Thursday there isn't enough evidence to prove he lied when he told a congressional panel under oath that he had ``never used steroids'' six weeks before failing a steroid test.
``The committee will not make a perjury referral to the Department of Justice,'' the House Government Reform Committee said in a 44-page report on the Palmeiro case released Thursday. ``A referral for perjury is a serious step. In this case, the evidence before the committee is insufficient to merit a perjury referral.''
The report said the panel ``did not make further determinations about the accuracy or inaccuracy of assertions by Mr. Palmeiro or others.''
At issue was Palmeiro's statement at a House Government Reform Committee hearing March 17: ``I have never used steroids. Period.'' On May 4, he failed a Major League Baseball drug test, coming up positive for an anabolic steroid. In August, shortly after baseball suspended Palmeiro for 10 days, the committee's chairman, Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., said Congress would look into whether the player committed perjury.