• US Department of Justice joins lawsuit against Lance Armstrong

    Lance Armstrong faces serious new legal trouble: The Justice Department has joined one of his former racing teammates in suing him for using performance-enhancing drugs during the Tour de France. NBC Justice Correspondent Pete Williams reports.

    By Pete Williams, Justice Correspondent, NBC News

    Lance Armstrong faces a powerful new adversary -- the United States government.

    The Justice Department notified a federal court Friday that it is joining one of his former racing teammates in suing him for using performance-enhancing drugs during the Tour de France.

    The government signed on to a lawsuit filed two years ago by Floyd Landis, one of Armstrong's former Tour de France teammates who has already admitted cheating. Among its claims: Landis saw Armstrong store and then re-inject his own blood to boost his performance, and Armstrong twice gave Landis banned hormones before races.

    The government’s legal theory in joining the lawsuit is that when Armstrong agreed to race for the U.S. Postal Service team a decade ago in the Tour de France, he defrauded the government, violating its strict ban on illegal drugs, all the while claiming he did not use them.

    Though the government’s action presents a serious new legal threat to Armstrong, the Justice Department case is not foolproof: Legal experts say Armstrong could argue that his contract with the team owners never explicitly prohibited blood doping, and he could claim that he never signed any agreement directly with the Postal Service that banned the practice.

    But if the government wins, Armstrong could face huge fines, because the Postal Service paid at least $30 million to sponsor his racing teams.

    Armstrong's attorney, Robert Luskin, said in a statement Friday that the Postal Service had no losses deserving of compensation.

    "Lance and his representatives worked constructively over these last weeks with federal lawyers to resolve this case fairly, but those talks failed because we disagree about whether the Postal Service was damaged," Luskin said. "The Postal's Services own studies show that the Service benefited tremendously from its sponsorship -- benefits totaling more than $100 million."

    After denying for years that he cheated, Armstrong gave a general admission last month in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. 

    "This issue of performance enhancers, to me, we're going to pump up our tires, put water in our bottles and, oh yeah, that, too, is going to happen. That was it," he said.

    The cycling website Velo News reported this week that Travis Tygart, the CEO of the US Anti-Doping Agency, wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder last month, urging the government to join the Landis lawsuit.

    A decision by the Justice Department to join the case “in order to get to the bottom (or top) of this massive fraud would also be viewed by the press and public as necessary and legitimate,” the letter said.

    Slideshow: Lance Armstrong’s controversial career

    Joel Saget / AFP - Getty Images

    The cyclist's historic run of Tour de France championships made headlines, as did his fall from grace after being stripped of the titles in 2012.

    Launch slideshow

    This story was originally published on Fri Feb 22, 2013 11:58 AM EST

  • From belief to betrayal: How America fell for Lance Armstrong

    In the wake of Lance Armstrong's admission to Oprah Winfrey that he used performance-enhancing drugs, the World Anti-Doping Agency is telling the cyclist he must tell the truth under oath if he ever wants to return to competitive sports, and former friends and teammates agree. NBC's Anne Thompson reports.

    By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News

    The suspicions were there from the start. And so were the convincing denials.

    In an early ad for Nike, Lance Armstrong met insinuations of doping head-on.

    “This is my body and I can do whatever I want to it,” he says in the commercial, inspirational at the time but hollowly ironic now.

    “I can push it, and study it, tweak it, listen to it,” he continues. “Everybody wants to know what I’m on? I’m on my bike, busting my ass six hours a day. What are you on?”

    A YouTube video of Lance Armstrong's "What Are You On?" Nike commercial from 2001.

    Armstrong’s astounding post-cancer comeback was still in its infancy when suggestions that he might not be clean surfaced with a report of steroids in his urine during his first Tour de France victory in 1999.

    He rejected them with what would become the hallmarks of his many denials: a flash of anger, a complaint of persecution, a pointed reference to his status as a survivor.

    “They say stress causes cancer," Armstrong said when confronted with the test result. "So if you want to avoid cancer, don't come to the Tour de France and wear the yellow jersey."

    His explanation -- that saddle-sore cream had caused the trace positive -- apparently satisfied the sport’s governing body. The early whiff of scandal did not stop him from crossing the line on the Champs-Elysees that year – or the next six.

    With each victory, Armstrong’s riches and popularity grew until it seemed like half the country had a yellow Livestrong charity bracelet dangling from their wrists.

    In 2005, a Gallup poll found 79 percent of people questioned had a favorable opinion of him. He made $17.5 million in endorsements that year and was engaged to singer Sheryl Crow.


    Questions about whether he was using performance enhancers had been mounting by the year: a 2000 probe into a report that a team staffer was caught disposing of drugs, a 2004 French book that alleged Armstrong juiced, the 2006 confessions of former teammates who admitted doping.

    Armstrong always responded the same way, with unequivocal denials and threats of legal action.

    “I have never doped,” he told Larry King in 2005, sounding exasperated at having to repeat himself.

    In a 2007 interview, he played the cancer card. “I was on my death bed. You think I’m going to come back into a sport and say, 'OK, doctor, give me everything you got. I just want to go fast.' No way.”

    He didn't dodge the accusations, he used them. His voiceover for a Nike ad during a 2009 comeback: "The critics say I'm arrogant. A doper. Washed up. A fraud. That I couldn't let it go. They can say whatever they want. I'm not back on my bike for them."

    YouTube video of Lance Armstrong's 2009 "Driven" ad for Nike in which he notes that critics call him a "doper" and "a fraud."

    There was no smoking-gun test result to refute him, and some of his critics were confessed liars.

    A teammate’s wife who testified was dismissed as a harridan with a vendetta. Finger-pointing ex-teammate Floyd Landis was accused of “harassment.” Even a federal investigation was branded “un-American” by Armstrong’s lawyer.

    The champion didn’t back down when the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency charged and suspended him in June, boasting that he had “passed more than 500 drug tests and never failed one.”

    'Witch hunt'
    Even his one act of surrender – his August announcement that he would not fight the agency's charges – was tinged with defiance. The probe was a “witch hunt,” the claims mere “nonsense” and “enough is enough,” he said.

    Armstrong’s sponsors were abandoning him, but he still had ardent defenders. In a Newsweek cover story, sports writer Buzz Bissinger declared the cyclist “a hero, one of the few we have left in a country virtually bereft of them.”

    Slideshow: Lance Armstrong’s controversial career

    OWN via Getty Images

    Lance Armstrong during his interview with Oprah Winfrey, which airs Thursday and Friday. The cyclist's historic run of Tour de France championships made headlines, as did his fall from grace after being stripped of the titles in 2012.

    Launch slideshow

    The tide of public opinion had clearly turned, though. A couple of weeks after USADA released its damning report on Oct. 10, a Seton Hall Sports Poll found only a third of the respondents had a positive opinion of Armstrong.

    This week's confession to Oprah Winfrey may be a bid to recoup some of the goodwill he once enjoyed and salvage his legacy, but the Johnny-come-lately reversal could backfire. Those who continued to back Armstrong even as the evidence became harder to ignore are as likely to feel betrayal as sympathy.

    Count Bissinger among them.

    “He is an immoral, manipulative liar who doesn’t deserve a second more of anybody’s time,” he wrote on the Daily Beast this week, asking readers not to watch the interview that airs Thursday and Friday.

    “Don’t continue to feed his insufferable ego. Don’t give him the satisfaction. Let him be what he has become: Unimportant and worthless.”

    Tune in to TODAY Friday for an exclusive live interview with Livestrong CEO Doug Ulman. 

    Related:

    Experts: Lance Armstrong confession could cost him tens of millions

    Armstrong's cancer-fighter legacy still inspires

    The players in the Lance Armstrong scandal


     

  • Experts: Lance Armstrong confession could cost him tens of millions

    Graham Watson / Reuters

    Lance Armstrong, shown here before the 2011 Tour Down Under cycling race in Australia, faces millions in civil claims. The government of Australia has asked for a refund of appearance fees after Armstrong reportedly confessed to doping.

    By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Lance Armstrong may not face criminal charges for admitting to doping, but fending off millions in civil claims could be tougher than climbing the Col du Tourmalet, experts say.


    His reported confession to Oprah Winfrey is likely to bolster a whistleblower lawsuit that has caught the feds’ attention, demands for refunds of prize and bonus money, even potential defamation actions by critics he viciously attacked.

    “At the end of the day, I would be surprised if the damages – total amount – aren’t in the tens of millions of dollars,” said Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago lawyer who has represented professional athletes in civil cases.

    That would punch a big hole in Armstrong’s fortune – estimated at more than $100 million – but would still be a softer blow than jail time.

    Federal prosecutors spent 20 months probing doping allegations against Armstrong for possible criminal charges. Using performance-enhancing drugs in sports isn’t a crime, but investigators probably looked for evidence of fraud, trafficking and perjury.

    They closed their criminal case in February 2011, and some observers think it’s unlikely that whatever Armstrong said to Winfrey would lead prosecutors to reopen it.

    “Mr. Armstrong is very well-advised by capable lawyers and I don’t think he would be admitting on the Oprah Winfrey show something that would give rise to a criminal charge,” said Wayne Lamprey, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in San Francisco.

    But that doesn’t mean Armstrong is completely off the hook with Uncle Sam.

    Settlement agreement in place?
    A Justice Department official told NBC News some lawyers in the civil division are pushing for the government to join a whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2010.

    The suit is under seal but published reports have said that Armstrong teammate Floyd Landis brought it on behalf of the U.S. Postal Service, which sponsored the team and paid out $30 million in fees.

    If successful, the suit could compel Armstrong and other defendants to pay back that money plus $60 million in damages, with up to 30 percent going to Landis. Federal involvement in the suit could improve Landis' chances.

    Lamprey, who handles whistleblower actions, said Armstrong’s decision to spill at least some of his guts while the whistleblower case is still pending “begs the question” of whether there’s an informal settlement agreement in place.

    “If I was representing a defendant in a case like this, if I didn’t feel like if I had something buttoned up, I wouldn’t have my client on national television admitting to the core of the charges,” he said. NBC News has been told that talks are under way.

    The whistleblower suit is just the biggest-ticket claim on the horizon.

    The organization that runs the Tour de France has already said Armstrong should pay back almost $4 million it awarded him for his wins. An insurance firm, SCA Promotions, is asking for $12 million in bonus payouts it covered in 2002, 2003 and 2005. The Australian government on Tuesday asked Armstrong to return millions in appearance fees to race in the Tour Down Under.

    Until his sitdown with Winfrey, which airs Thursday and Friday, Armstrong has never wavered in his denial of doping, branding his accusers liars and worse, and his insults theoretically could be grounds for defamation claims.

    “I would expect people to come out of the woodwork,” Stoltmann said.

    New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica talks about Armstrong's revelation that he did take performance-enhancing drugs after years of denials, calling it a "giant athletic Ponzi scheme," and attorney Lisa Bloom discusses the legal implications.

    But David Newman, of Manhattan firm Day Pitney, said the statute of limitations may have run out on many of those statements, and plaintiffs would have to prove they had been damaged by Armstrong’s rantings.

    Newman also said he would not expect to see lawsuits from some of Armstrong’s former sponsors, like Nike, Anheuser-Busch and Trek, seeking to recoup what they spent.

    “One could argue fraudulent inducement or misrepresentation,” Newman said. “But Nike or any of these sponsors don’t want to get into a lawsuit even if they’re right, because long, drawn-out litigation blackens their name even more.

    “They want to cut the ties and move on and find the good new person to sponsor – the next Oprah Winfrey.”

    NBC's Pete Williams contributed to this report.

    Tune in to TODAY Friday for an exclusive live interview with Livestrong CEO Doug Ulman. 

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  • 6 questions Lance Armstrong really needs to answer

    Slideshow: Lance Armstrong’s controversial career

    Joel Saget / AFP - Getty Images

    The cyclist's historic run of Tour de France championships made headlines, as did his fall from grace after being stripped of the titles in 2012.

    Launch slideshow

    By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Viewers who tune into Oprah Winfrey's interview with Lance Armstrong on Thursday will expect to see the disgraced cyclist offer some sort of admission to doping.


    One can only imagine he'll talk about the incredible stress of such a demanding sport. He might suggest that his Tour de France wins still have some legitimacy since many competitors were also taking performance-enhancing drugs. If he really wants to make a play for sympathy, he could dwell on how much his cancer charity Livestrong has suffered.

    But after a decade of indignant denials -- and legal threats and actions against his detractors -- that's not going to satisfy many of Armstrong's former fans. Here's what they'll really want to hear from the athlete, who promised to answer all of Winfrey's questions "honestly" before Monday's sitdown.

    1. Did Armstrong dope before he was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996? If so, did he tell his doctors? Betsy Andreu, the wife of a former teammate, testified in 2006 that she heard Armstrong admit to his doctors that he had used human growth hormone, steroids, and other chemicals. He denied it and tried to discredit Andreu by claiming she was "vindictive and vengeful."

    2. Does Armstrong have anything to say to whistle-blowers he reportedly denounced and bullied over the years? A report by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency alleged Armstrong berated a loose-lipped competitor during the 18th stage of the 2004 Tour de France, tried to get an anti-doping doctor fired in 2005, and told an ex-teammate who testified two years ago, "I’m going to make your life a living…hell."

    3. Was Armstrong, as the USADA report found, a mastermind of a sophisticated doping program who strong-armed other riders on the U.S. Postal Service team into juicing? In July 2010, Armstrong bristled at the suggestion he was a pusher. "There was absolutely no way I forced people, encouraged people, told people, helped people, facilitated," he said. "Absolutely not."

    4. Will Armstrong give authorities any information he might have about others involved with doping? His friend, the Italian doctor Michele Ferrari, who has been banned by the USADA for life, claimed as recently as last month that he never saw Armstrong dope. Last week, the head of Switzerland's anti-doping laboratory denied the agency’s claims of helping Armstrong.  And there is an active investigation into Armstrong’s payments to the International Cycling Union, the sport’s governing body.

    5. Will Armstrong pay the price? The cyclist won more than $3 million in prize money with his seven Tour de France wins, plus $7.5 million in bonuses from the owner of the team. He's been asked to return both. The Sunday Times of London is suing him for $1.5 million over a libel settlement he scored in 2004.

    6. Why now? Armstrong has never been anything but belligerent when faced with evidence of doping. Even after he was stripped of his Tour de France titles, he tweeted a photo of himself relaxing on a sofa below the framed yellow jerseys from those wins -- interpreted by many as a defiant and arrogant gesture. So if he reverses course now, what does he hope to gain? Is he bucking for reinstatement one day, preparing to launch a new athletic career, or is he actually sorry?