The US Justice Department filed a formal complaint onTuesday against Lance Armstrong, saying the doping-disgraced cyclist and team owners defrauded the US Postal Service of sponsorship money.
The government, which said in February that it would join a whistle-blower lawsuit brought by former Armstrong teammate Floyd Landis in 2010, says the USPS spent about US$40 million in sponsor money and gave Armstrong $17 million.
Armstrong admitted last January that he took performance-enhancing drugs when he won the Tour de France seven times after having been stripped of the crowns based upon a US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) investigation.
That prompted the US government’s involvement in the fraud case, and it now seeks triple damages in a jury trial, according to the complaint as detailed by NBC News and the Austin American-Statesman, Armstrong’s hometown newspaper.
That could mean a total US$150 million hit for Armstrong.
“Because the defendants’ misconduct undermined the value of the sponsorship to the USPS, the United States suffered damages in that it did not receive the value of the services for which it bargained,” the newspaper quoted the complaint as saying.
The elabourate scheme to evade doping detection uncovered by USADA was cited in the complaint, which said Armstrong team manager Johan Bruyneel knowingly took part in a doping program in violation of their sponsorship contract.