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Armstrong a 'doper, dealer and liar' says US federal government

By Cycling News

published 12 July 2016

New report filed in response to Armstrong's request to have part of government’s case thrown out

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Lance Armstrong rode with Astana when he made his TDU debut(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)

There was always lots of media attention for Lance Armstrong when he rode the TDU(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)

Lance Armstrong in yellow leads Christophe Moreau back at the 2002 Dauphine(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)

Lance Armstrong and Marco Pantani approach the finish of Mont Ventoux shoulder-to-shoulder in 2000(Image credit: Fotoreporter Sirotti)

In the on-going whistleblower lawsuit against Lance Armstrong, the federal government has called the former rider “a doper, dealer and liar,’ according to a report in USA Today.

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“No sponsor who knew the truth about how Armstrong achieved his apparent Tour de France victories would have paid any amount of money to sponsor him or his team,” US Justice Department attorneys wrote in a new 59-page report, according to USA Today.

The federal government is seeking retribution of nearly $100 million, and on Monday it filed the new report, which was written in response to Armstrong’s attorneys requesting a summary judgement and to have a portion of the federal government’s case thrown out, calling it misguided.

“Armstrong’s motion for summary judgment should be denied in its entirety, and this Court should set a date for trial,” attorneys representing the federal government added in the report.

The whistleblower lawsuit, which accuses Armstrong and former colleagues of defrauding the government, was originally filed by Armstrong's former teammate Floyd Landis under the Federal False Claims Act in 2010.

The US Justice Department joined the case in 2013 in an effort to recover sponsorship funding paid by the US Postal Service to the team between 1996 and 2004, a sum of roughly $40 million in sponsorship dollars.

Those figures have been brought forward by the federal government through 41 claims for payment during the sponsorship years. However, Armstrong’s attorneys have asked the judge to exclude those payment figures from the lawsuit saying that it was the Postal Service’s management company Tailwind Sports, not Armstrong, that had control over those accounts.