The Real Winners in the Lance Armstrong Investigation: His Attorneys

Photo taken from Forbes.com

In most fraud cases, the real winners are the attorneys. This is definitely looking to be the case  with Lance Armstrong since he is getting sued left and right these days. Not only has the US Justice Department joined in Floyd Landis's suit claiming Lance defrauded the US Postal Service but numerous other lawsuits and legal actions are being filed daily. While the suit by the US Postal Service could, in theory, add up to over $100 million, these other suits could also add up to real money too, especially when you consider all the legal fees his attorneys must be charging him. For example, I learned about the following two new lawsuits today...

Lance Armstrong Investigation: Fed to Join Landis in Suing Lance, Weisel and Stapleton

This is hot off the press and, from what I can tell, was first published by the Wall Street Journal. Amidst speculation in the past few days that the Department of Justice was not going to join in the whistleblower lawsuit filed by Floyd Landis, the WSJ is saying they are going to join in. This is bad news for Lance, Thom Weisel and Bill Stapleton since Lance has now stated publicly that he was doping. On the other hand, this is good news for Floyd Landis who could end up a multi-millionaire as a result of this lawsuit. Here are some key fraudbytes from the WSJ article:

Feds Joining Suit Against Lance Armstrong

CBS News reported yesterday that the federal government is considering joining in Floyd Landis's lawsuit against Lance Armstrong which alleges that he defrauded the government due to his doping while receiving $30 million in sponsorship funds from the US Postal Service. My understanding is that the government could receive treble damages for this lawsuit which would amount to $90 million. Lance would not be the only one to be hurt by this.

A tweet this afternoon by CBS News says that they have learned that Lance offered to settle with the government for $5 million and that he offered to be a cooperating witness in a federal investigation. The tweet claims that the Department of Justice turned down both offers.

If this is true, it suggests that the federal government will be joining in the lawsuit against Lance and they expect to go for significantly more than $5 million. The saga continues...

Will Lance's Confession be Anticlimactic?

I've been thinking that saying Lance's confession will be anticlimactic will be a major understatement. I had decided that I won't even try to watch it come out live because it seems like a waste of time. However, yesterday, the NY Times published an article suggesting that Lance Armstrong's confession may be interesting in that it could involve testifying against many top-level officials in cycling such as Hein Verbruggen and Pat McQuaid of the UCI and Lance's former partner at Tailwind Sports, Thom Weisel. Here are some key excerpts from the Times article: