Lance Armstrong legal team moves to dismiss federal fraud lawsuit

Lawyers defense argument is brilliant, love their spin on it. Hope this gets reproduced on Law and Order as a fictional event. Anyways, they shouldn't be asking for the full amount back. Before he was stripped of his title, they got a lot of good association with Lance's wins. Sure he breached the contract but in fairness he did deliver a lot of value in terms of publicity. With this trial they are getting another round of publicity for free! what a deal!

F***ing incredible, this guy seems hell bent on blaming everyone else apart from himself ...

3.9 million twitter followers, but how many of them are actually "fans"? I reckon nearly half of them are journo's around the world? It's interesting to see who actually follows him if you look through his the list of followers you know.

The fact is Lance's assets have not been frozen. He is still free to sell property, gift money to relatives or hide it all in a Swiss bank account. It's unlikely he would be able to do this with all of his estimated $130gazzilion fortune, but he aint stupid and neither are his lawyers. He'll have tucked a tidy few million away just in case he has to give it all up.

Just out of interest, what abut the OCC bike that was sold for charity a few years back? is Armstrong going to reimburse The OCC for their losses on the project?

Lance, please crawl back under your rock, no ones interested in you anymore!

I wonder how much damages one would receive for being naive and stupid for believing in his athletic ability? Probably more than a London Borough who can use section 58 of the Highway Act 1980 to avoid any payment! Bitter you bet!

I would suspect that Armstrong has made efforts to put at least some of his wealth out of reach, in case he loses these cases. He's had plenty of warning!

By some estimates, his peak net worth was not much more than, perhaps even less than the amount the US government are now seeking from him in damages ($100m to $150m versus $120m). So, if things went badly for him, he could be pretty much wiped out. He's already had to spend quite a bit on legal costs it seems, possibly millions. He sold off his Texas home (of the famous picture with him lying on the sofa under his jerseys) a while ago, and one wonders if that was cause he needed cash.

He's also got at least 2 other lawsuits coming up, including with SCA for circa $8 to $12 million. With that one I suspect he has 0 chance of arguing statute of limitations, because SCA actually did take action back in the day - but lost cause of his obstruction.

Even if he looses, he will still be a millionaire. The guy has no respect for cycling and he has no shame in fighting in court, like a greedy little bastard, for money he should never have received. It's vulgar the way he still wears Livestrong branded clothing considering what Livestrong is supposed to mean.

Rumpo: Yeah, the government has to argue that the defendants obstructed discovery, and couldn't have had cause to sue otherwise, because that being true stops the clock on the time limitations. Armstrong's side of course will argue the converse.

If Armstrong's side can prevail on that point, then there simply is no case to answer, and they don't have to fight any of the other points.

He will pay out million's in lawyers fees, won't pay anyone a red cent in compensation and will still be regards by many, Americans and others, as a hero.

Funny old life innit?

It is a legitimate argument, not because it is a defence of itself, but because it matters greatly toward determining when the clock started on the time limitations in making a claim under the False Claims Act - which is 6 years at most. Lance's lawyers are arguing the government's claim is too late because:

a) The government's last paid claim was in June '04, more than the 6 years prior to Landis filing suit.

b) The date of discovery (from which the clock really starts) - the point where the claimant had sufficient information to have cause for their claim - was also more than 6 years ago, because there were already a number of allegations of doping against Lance prior to the last paid claim.

Lance and Bruyneel's lawyers' aren't arguing "you should have known", but "it's too late to claim under this act".

See here for the Armstrong motion to dismiss: http://www.scribd.com/doc/155635707/Armstrong-Motion-to-Dismiss

This matters a lot to Lance. He faces potential financial ruin if he loses this law suit. He may well succeed on the statute of limitations argument.

It's just an excuse to get the money back, cos really it sounds a legit argument that USPS got their value.

The guy's a sociopath - he has no idea what 'responsibility' means (or truth for that matter), nothing was ever his fault.

Lance, please just go away and don't come back.

Dear Lance.

For the love of God, go quietly into the night now. Please. You've had your day.

Yours,
The entire cycling community.

You should have know i was cheating...but if you dared to suggest as much me and my team of lawyers would have been right up in your ass.

This is real parallel universe stuff. Is "It's your fault for believing me, you should have known I was a liar" a legitimate defence?