Web of Deception: Lance Armstrong and His Prosecutor

This week’s Sports Illustrated has a long, deeply reported piece on allegations new and old that Lance Armstrong—he of the cancer-beating, product-endorsing, wristband-wearing fame—took multiple performance-enhancing drugs over the course of two decades. The article includes allegations that Armstrong used testosterone-boosting drugs while competing in the Olympics in the '90s, took the notorious and commonly-used drug EPO during his 1999 Tour De France run, admitting to using growth hormones, cortisone and steroids while in treatment for cancer, had boxes of the steroid Androstenedione lying around in 2004, and commonly carred around a suitcase of syringes and PEDs—taken individually, these stories could be dismissed as rumors or stories spread by vengeful and jealous former friends, but after reading the entire article, it’s hard for anyone to say, “Armstrong never used PEDs.” 

Armstrong’s camp has been trying to discredit the cheating rumors for years, painting former teammate and known doper Floyd Landis—who is the one who said, “Lance had a bag of drugs and shit” in a suitcase—as a liar out for money and personal fame. Armstrong also responded to allegations from a French anti-doping lab by going on Larry King and saying, “Do you think I'm going to trust some guy in a French lab to open my samples and say they're positive. . . and not give me the chance to defend myself?” in a PR move apparently designed to appeal to Americans’ xenophobic and anti-French feelings: some guy in a French lab, not a world-class, IOC-certified lab that clearly found EPO in Armstrong’s urine. The end of SI’s article indicates that Armstrong is going to try to discredit his accusers again, this time tweaking federal agent Jeff Novitzky, who has been spearheading the FDA’s investigation of Armstrong:  

Armstrong unleashed his cheeky Twitter alter ego, Juan Pelota (a pun on the English word one and the Spanish word for ball, in reference to Armstrong's testicular cancer surgery). Pelota tweeted: Hey Jeff, como estan los hoteles de quatro estrellas y el classe de business in el aeroplano? Que mas necesitan? Translated, the mangled Spanish tweaks Novitzky by asking, “How are the four-star hotels and business class in the airplane? What more do you need?”

Novitzky is an interesting character. Perhaps more than any other law enforcement agent, he’s been crusading against American athletes who use performance-enhancing drugs. He’s been responsible for the charges against Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Marion Jones, and Victor Conte, the founder of the steroid-manufacturing BALCO lab. He’s also, as Deadspin notes, well known for prosecutorial overreach. He and his agents seized thousands of computer files with data on steroid users from BALCO in 2004—files that many say they did not have the authority to seize. (A court case on whether the seizure was illegal is going through the torturous appeals process.) Novitzky’s also the person suspected of creating the infamous list of baseball players who had used steroids, and then leaking some of those names to the press, all of which is illegal.

There’s no sign that Novitzky is up to his old, rule-circumventing tricks as he gathers evidence against Armstrong. There seem to be more than enough people who are willing to testify against Armstrong, who, because he received government support in the form of the USPS’s sponsoring of his team, could face charges of money laundering, racketeering, drug trafficking, and defrauding the US government. Even if the Armstrong beats the charges, perhaps on a technicality, or if the validity of Novitzky’s evidence is questioned, there’s no doubt that he’ll be disgraced; the fact that the cyclists he competed against were also likely using PEDs won’t save his public reputation.

But Novitzky could also face public humiliation if the court decides to throw out the evidence he acquired from the BALCO raid during the upcoming Barry Bonds trial. And if it ever comes out that Novitzky was the one leaking steroid users’ names, he could face jail time—cheating the U.S. judicial system being much more serious than cheating in sports. We might look back on this period of steroid wars in sports as not only marred by athletes cheating, but by the cheating of their persecutors—and prosecutors—as well.