US goes after Lance’s $$$
Cyclist was ‘unjustly enriched’
THE US government has filed court documents laying out its case against cyclist Lance Armstrong, who is accused of defrauding the US Postal Service by taking millions of dollars in sponsorship money while flouting professional cycling rules by doping.
The US Justice Department said the cyclist violated his contract with the postal service and was “unjustly enriched” while cheating to win the Tour de France.
Armstrong and his team-mates from Tailwind Sports were paid $40 million by the postal service from 1998 to 2004, according to the suit. Armstrong’s salary during that time, excluding bonuses, was $17.9m.
The lawsuit also names former team Armstrong team director Johan Bruyneel and team management company Tailwind Sports as defendants.
The financial costs for Armstrong and Bruyneel could be high. The government said it would seek triple damages assessed by the jury.
The department said in February that it would join a whistleblower lawsuit brought in 2010 by Armstrong’s former team-mate, Floyd Landis, and filed its formal complaint yesterday.
Armstrong has been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and was banned for life from cycling last year after accusations he had cheated for years. In January, he said the accusations were true in an interview with television host Oprah Winfrey.
An attorney for Armstrong said the complaint was opportunistic and insincere. “The US Postal Service benefited tremendously from its sponsorship of the cycling team. Its own studies repeatedly and conclusively prove this. The USPS was never the victim of fraud,” said attorney Elliot Peters.
“Lance Armstrong rode his heart out for the USPS team, and gave the brand tremendous exposure during the sponsorship years.”
The complaint echoes Landis’s claims that Armstrong and others defrauded the US government by falsely denying the doping accusations and continuing their sponsor- ship relationship with the agency.
The US complaint accuses Armstrong of using at least one prohibited substance or method in connection with every Tour de France between 1999 and 2005.
“Moreover, he knew that his team-mates were engaged in similar doping practices, and he actively encouraged and facilitated those practices.”
Armstrong has argued that the postal service’s endorsement of his team earned the government agency far more than it paid him.
The government must prove not only that the postal service was defrauded, but that it was damaged somehow.
Previous studies done for the ppostal service concluded the agency reaped at least $139m in worldwide brand exposure in four years – $35m to $40m for sponsoring the Armstrong team in 2001; $38m to $42m in 2002; $31m in 2003; and $34.6m in 2004.
The complaint against Armstrong appears to rely heavily on evidence and statements supplied by Landis and gathered by the US Anti-Doping Agency for its investigation that exposed a doping programme on the postal service team.
The government notes the contract with the postal service required riders to follow the rules of cycling, which included bans on performance-enhancing drugs and methods. The complaint said that for years, team officials assured the postal service that the team was not doping.
Armstrong is fighting a lawsuit from Dallas-based promotions company SCA to recover about $12m it paid him in bonuses, and a lawsuit from the London-based Sunday Times, which wants to get back $500 000 it paid him to settle a libel case. – Sapa-AP, Reuters