Lance Armstrong, in Embarrassing Effort to Avoid a $120 Million Lawsuit, Claims USPS Should Have Known He Was Doping

The Justice Dept. is suing Lance Armstrong for defrauding the USPS, because he accepted millions in sponsorship money under the presumption he was clean. The disgraced cycling champ could be held liable for up to $120 million in damages. Armstrong’s lawyers are trying to get the suit thrown out, on the premise that the USPS should have known Lance was doping, because it was in the news.

"But Mr. Armstrong, in a 25-page rebuke of the allegations, said the Postal Service should have known that he was doping. Allegations that he had used performance-enhancing drugs had received news coverage. But the officials “did nothing,” the filing says. Armstrong was denying his use of performance enhancing drugs during this period. “Instead, the Postal Service renewed the Sponsorship Agreement,” Mr. Armstrong’s lawyers, John Keker and Elliot Peters of Keker & Van Nest, LLP, wrote, and “basked in the favorable publicity of its sponsorship.” The Postal Service began its sponsorship in October 1995, and extended its sponsorship until year’s end 2004."

Allegations had indeed received news coverage. News coverage that was pilloried by sycophants in the media who went along with Armstrong bullying and staining the reputations of honest people. Lance was not obliterated on live television by Bob Ley until 2006, two years after USPS ended its sponsorship.