The federal government has filed a lawsuit against Lance Armstrong, claiming he violated his contract with the Postal Service, which paid him $17 million over six years, by cheating to win the Tour de France.
The Justice Department revealed its formal complaint Tuesday,
and could prompt Armstrong to pay millions of dollars in
compensation to the feds. From 1998-2004, the USPS paid the former
cyclist $17 million and spent about $40 million to appear as the
title sponsor of six of Armstrong’s teams.
The government says it plans to recover triple the amount of the
Postal Service’s sponsorship funds, which means Armstrong may be
facing more than $100 million in damages. The complaint, which was
filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, states
that under the False Claims Act, Armstrong’s use of prohibited
drugs constitutes a breach of contract with the USPS.
“Riders on the USPS-sponsored team, including Armstrong, knowingly
caused material violations of the sponsorship agreements by
regularly and systematically employing banned substances and
methods to enhance their performance,” the complaint states.
“Defendants were unjustly enriched to the extent of the payments
and other benefits they received from the USPS, either directly or
indirectly.”
The complaint also describes occasions where Armstrong and the USPS
team conspired to use performance-enhancing substances in ways that
would help them avoid detection. The lawsuit references the Floyd
Landis doping case, in which the 2006 winner of the Tour de France
was found to be using synthetic testosterone and subsequently had
his title stripped. Landis is now a major part of the whistleblower
effort against Armstrong, his former teammate.
Armstrong was stripped of all his titles and banned from
competition after the US Anti-Doping Agency found the presence of
illegal drugs in his blood samples. The cyclist previously tried to
negotiate a settlement with the US government, but the feds
recently announced they would join Landis’ whistleblower case
against Armstrong.
During an interview with Oprah Winfrey in January, Armstrong
publicly admitted
doping for the sake of the Tour de France races, after years of
denying the allegations. He described a “ruthless desire” to
win the races at all costs under the “momentum” of pressure,
and admitted that this was his “biggest flaw”. He confessed
that he used performance-enhancing drugs from the mid-1990s until
2005 and apologized for filing lawsuits against those who claimed
he had doped.
But regarding the government’s complaint against the former
champion, Armstrong attorney Elliot Peters described it as
“opportunistic” and “insincere”, claiming that the
government received lucrative exposure from the sponsorship.
“The US Postal Service benefited tremendously from its
sponsorship of the cycling team,” Peters told AP. “The USPS
was never the victim of fraud. Lance Armstrong rode his heart out
for the USPS team, and gave the brand tremendous exposure during
the sponsorship years.”
Armstrong has previously tried to settle the Landis
whistleblower lawsuit, but the federal government’s involvement
with the case will make it more difficult to
close.