Lawyers: Justice Dept. joins suit against Lance Armstrong
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department has joined a lawsuit against disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong that alleges the former, seven-time Tour de France champion concealed his use of performance-enhancing drugs and defrauded his long-time sponsor, the U.S. Postal Service, Armstrong's lawyers said Friday.
The suit the Justice Department is joining was filed in 2010 by former teammate Floyd Landis, who was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title for doping.
Settlement discussions had been underway between the Justice Department and Armstrong's lawyers. A person familiar with the negotiations says the two sides are tens of millions of dollars apart on how much Armstrong should pay to settle the case. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the source was not authorized to speak on the record about the private talks.
An Armstrong lawyer, Robert Luskin, said negotiations with the government failed because "we disagree about whether the postal service was damaged."
"The postal service's own studies show that the service benefited tremendously from its sponsorship - benefits totaling more than $100 million," said Luskin
The Landis lawsuit was filed under seal, but it will be unsealed with the Justice Department decision to join, or in essence, take over the case.
Armstrong was the subject of a two-year federal grand jury investigation that the Justice Department dropped a year ago without an indictment.
Throughout his career, Armstrong always denied drug use, but he confessed to having done so in an interview last month.
In October, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency released a report that included affidavits from 11 of Armstrong's former teammates. These affidavits detailed how the teammates were supplied with EPO by Armstrong and saw him inject, and how they were pressured to dope and bullied by Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel, the team manager. The cycling world's governing body then stripped Armstrong of the seven Tour de France titles he won from 1999 to 2005.
Last month, the head of USADA lobbied Attorney General Eric Holder for the Justice Department to join the lawsuit against Armstrong. USADA chief executive Travis Tygart has called the doping by Armstrong and the postal service teams a "massive economic fraud."
The suit the Justice Department is joining was filed in 2010 by former teammate Floyd Landis, who was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title for doping.
Settlement discussions had been underway between the Justice Department and Armstrong's lawyers. A person familiar with the negotiations says the two sides are tens of millions of dollars apart on how much Armstrong should pay to settle the case. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the source was not authorized to speak on the record about the private talks.
An Armstrong lawyer, Robert Luskin, said negotiations with the government failed because "we disagree about whether the postal service was damaged."
"The postal service's own studies show that the service benefited tremendously from its sponsorship - benefits totaling more than $100 million," said Luskin
The Landis lawsuit was filed under seal, but it will be unsealed with the Justice Department decision to join, or in essence, take over the case.
Armstrong was the subject of a two-year federal grand jury investigation that the Justice Department dropped a year ago without an indictment.
Throughout his career, Armstrong always denied drug use, but he confessed to having done so in an interview last month.
In October, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency released a report that included affidavits from 11 of Armstrong's former teammates. These affidavits detailed how the teammates were supplied with EPO by Armstrong and saw him inject, and how they were pressured to dope and bullied by Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel, the team manager. The cycling world's governing body then stripped Armstrong of the seven Tour de France titles he won from 1999 to 2005.
Last month, the head of USADA lobbied Attorney General Eric Holder for the Justice Department to join the lawsuit against Armstrong. USADA chief executive Travis Tygart has called the doping by Armstrong and the postal service teams a "massive economic fraud."
He's the worse kind of criminal and hope he serves prison time and loses all his wrongfully aquired wealth!!
I was going to say this is none of the DOJ's business because he broke no laws but he did defraud one of his big sponsors, the USPS, and should at least be forced to return all the money that USPS spent on him. And of course this goes back to the fact that why is the USPS sponsoring anybody? Don't they have a budget problem?Â
@Blindman Lance made the USPS money. And the only reason that the USPS loses money each year is because they are the only agency forced by law to prefund their pension packages many many years in advance. You can thank the Republicans for that law.Â
Oh good Lord just let it go already!
The USPS does sponserships? Who knew? Learn something new every day.
What an idiot, should have kept his big mouth shut, nothing to gain from coming clean and he had half the public convinced he did nothing. Â Stay quiet, keep denying, and ride off into retirement nice and quietly.
This is an absolutely great teaching op for our young atheletes.  Hope high school coaches are running with it big time.
From a legal standpoint, I wonder if the Postal Service is entitled to damages. If they did in fact profit from the relationship, how were they damaged? I'm not sticking up for him personally but I wonder how they feel they were damaged. Just curious.
Mike
Life is generally smoother when you follow the rules. This guy has only himself to blame for all this.
Suing that fraud for every penny he ever got from racing still wouldn't mean a thing to that egotistical moron..