The US government filed a case against seven times tour de France winner Lance Armstrong. The basis of this case is that Armstrong has been accused of doping himself and encouraging and facilitating his team members to do the same.
Lance Armstrong has taken millions of dollars’ worth of sponsorship money from the United States Postal Service. USPS now claims that they have been cheated out the value of their invested money. In 2012, Lance Armstrong was officially banned from participating any further Tour de France, in addition to this all his previous Tour de France accomplishments were cancelled. Earlier this year, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, he admitted that he was on dope.
His long former friend and team-mate, Floyd Landis, had filed the initial lawsuit that claimed that Armstrong had been on dope for years, and that all his Tour de France trophies were won while he was on dope. This also is known as a whistleblower lawsuit and the US government may take over any such lawsuit if it deems the suit to be beneficial to itself. Thus, the lawsuit was taken over by the US government, and if the prosecution wins, a part of the benefit will go to the initial whistleblower, Landis. Although originally filed in 2010, the lawsuit was only recently taken over by the US government.
The US Postal Service claims to have spent $40 million in sponsorship of Tailwind Sports – Armstrong and his teammates – and Armstrong’s salary alone was around $17.8 million from the year 1998 to 2004.
The USPS is filing the case under the False Claims Act. Under this act, if Armstrong is proven to have used unfair or unjust means to boost up his performance, then the state can claim up to three times the money spent as recompense.
In his defense, his attorney, Elliot Peters, claimed that the USPS has not lost a single penny due to its sponsorship of the team. In fact, during the years that it had sponsored the team, the USPS had benefited hugely, so it cannot claim on the basis of loss as a result of any fraud. In fact, while Armstrong was being sponsored, he gave it some of his best shots and made sure that the company sponsoring him got as much exposure as possible.
However, a lawyer for the prosecution claims, “the US did not get what it bargained for.”
Another attorney, also for the prosecution, Paul Scott, said that he was glad that the US government was finally putting in an effort to recover the money that came from taxpayers which was lost to fraud.
It may be mentioned that Armstrong has faced a lot of his cycling career being accused of doping. The first allegations came in 2003, but he had repeatedly and vehemently fought off allegations that he had been involved with doping. So, it came as a big surprise when he, on January 14 2013, partially admitted to his doping habits on an Oprah Winfrey show. As it stands, if it is not proven that his doping directly lead to any loss on the part of the state, the state may get no recompense at all.
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