Landis granted two hours to question Armstrong in pre-trial deposition
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Lance Armstrong in a media scrum ahead of the One Day Ahead ride(Image credit: Getty Images)
Expect to see Lance Armstrong in suit and tie this fall if his case goes to arbitration(Image credit: AFP Photo)
Lance Armstrong (RadioShack) looks dazed and bloodied after hitting the deck during the 2010 Tour of California(Image credit: Jonathan Devich/epicimages.us)
Lance Armstrong in 2009(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
US District Judge Christopher Cooper has ruled that Lance Armstrong will provide three more hours of testimony under oath in order to go examine relevant information about doping in the on-going whistleblower lawsuit, according to a report in USA Today. In addition, Armstrong’s former teammate Floyd Landis will be granted two hours to question the disgraced former Tour de France winner in a pre-trial deposition.
Armstrong previously gave seven hours of deposition on July 23 and his lawyers tried to stop the government’s request for additional time saying that the Texan had already answered 1,600 questions in the initial deposition. However, in a statement from Cooper, which was posted on USA Today, he said, “Having reviewed the July 23 deposition transcript, the Court agrees that the Government is entitled to reopen Armstrong’s deposition.
“The Government has identified several lines of inquiry that it was not able to fully explore in the first seven hours, most notably Armstrong’s own prior statements addressing allegations that he had used PEDs (performance-enhancing drugs). These statements — many of them unequivocal denials — are relevant to the Government’s theory that Armstrong concealed his drug use from (the U.S. Postal Service). The Government is entitled to explore whether Armstrong will seek to disavow or qualify those earlier assertions at trial."
At the beginning of August, the US government had also subpoenaed the Indiana University School of Medicine to provide Lance Armstrong’s medical records from the time of his treatment for cancer in 1996, to find out if his doctors knew that he had used performance-enhancing drugs. The government also issued subpoenas for testimony from Armstrong's former sponsors Nike Inc., Trek Bicycle Corp., Giro Sport Design and Discovery Communications Inc.
