Posted on 09/16/2010 8:13:41 AM PDT by truthandlife
Federal authorities have reportedly obtained an important piece of evidence linking Lance Armstrong to performance-enhancing drugs. Greg LeMond (pictured), a three-time Tour de France winner, secretly recorded a telephone call six years ago with a woman close to Lance Armstrong who was in Armstrong's hospital room in 1996 when he told cancer doctors about his use of performance-enhancing drugs, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Armstrong, who won a record seven consecutive Tour de France titles, has repeatedly denied ever using performance-enhancing drugs or doping.
The recording and a transcript of the telephone call are expected to be presented to a federal grand jury in Los Angeles that is looking into allegations of drug use in professional cycling.
Sources told the Los Angeles Times that the woman who engaged in the phone call with LeMond is Stephanie McIlvain, who served as Armstrong's liaison at Oakley and was a confidant. Prosecutors have already subpoenaed McIlvain.
LeMond originally called McIlvain with the intention of talking to her about other business. But the telephone call switched gears shortly after when LeMond asked McIlvain exactly what happened in the hospital room with Armstrong in 1996.
During the telephone conversation McIlvain asked LeMond if he was taping the article, to which he responded "no."
According to the Los Angeles Times article, LeMond says on the phone call, "I know what I heard from a source outside of the group here of what, um, happened at the hospital.... I'm not asking you to do anything you would never want to do, but, you know, if I did get down where it was ... a lawsuit ... would you be willing to testify?"
McIlvain responded: "If I was subpoenaed, I would. ... I'm not going to lie. ... I was in that room. I heard it. ... My whole concern is my loyalties to Oakley. ... They say I was never in there. And I know I was in there. You know, I totally know I was in there."
According to LeMond's wife Kathy, the tape was made in July 2004. Greg LeMond has reportedly given prosecutors the taped conversation with McIlvain along with tens of thousands of documents corroborating evidence against Armstrong.
The true story in regards to what Armstrong actually told doctors in 1996 has been in dispute since 2004, when a book came out noting that Armstrong's former teammate, Frankie Andreu, and his wife, Betsy, who were also present in the 1996 hospital room, said they also heard Armstrong's admissions to using performance-enhancing drugs. Earlier this summer, Betsy Andreu told prosecutors and the Los Angeles Times that she thinks McIlvain has not spoken out about the situation to not jeopardize her career with Oakley.
In a 2005 Texas civil case deposition, McIlvain denied ever hearing Armstrong make an admission of using performance-enhancing drugs or doping. She did not return calls to the Los Angeles Times.
Betsy Andreu, though, has also provided federal prosecutors with voice mail tapes that reportedly have McIlvain apologizing for lying in the 2005 Texas civil case deposition.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, one of Armstrong's legal representative notes that, "Greg LeMond's illegal tape is the stalest of all the stale news to emerge from this inquiry so far: Ms. McIlvain disavowed this during her 2005 sworn deposition, and Mr. LeMond violated California law when he made the tape in yet another of his pathetic attempts to settle old cycling grudges."
The Los Angeles Times also reported that legal expert Laurie Levenson noted that calls can be used as evidence in federal cases as long as one of the parties in the taped call is not reluctant to using it.
In other Lance Armstrong news, the head of the French anti-doping agency, Pierre Bordry, has said that he will fully cooperate with the U.S. in their investigation into Armstrong and doping.
“it makes me wonder what his grudge against Armstrong is...”
Start with the beer and Radio Shack adds and work back...pure unadulterated jealousy IMHO.
Even if someone could produce a tape of the actual conversation, and on that tape Lance Armstrong could be heard telling his doctors that he used performance enhancing drugs, I’m not sure this would have any legal effect, because Lance Armstrong could now say that he was lying to the doctors at that time.
It's gone well beyond Ahab stage. It's jihad. What kind of a crackpot spends time doing PI work and taping unsuspecting people?
Armstrong has been tested more than any other cyclist.
Are the tests incomplete?
How could he keep coming up clean.?
Why should it fit?
Maybe, maybe not. From the article:
"According to LeMond's wife Kathy, the tape was made in July 2004."
Well, you’d think that LeMond’s wife would know when the tape was made, and further if she was lying, she’d do so in a way that supported her husband, not (as this does) makes his claims more dubious.
You are of course correct, if I had thought about it, I would have known. Thanks for correcting me.
Whatever his grudge is, it is making LeMond look bad....
Yes! And didn't the Doc himself contradict what Betsy A. (& evidently this Oakley rep too, depending upon to whom she speaking & in what year) said they were even talking about at all?
All of which comports with somebody else's point upthread that it would be very strange for a medical professional to quiz a patient on their history with illegal substances with a crowd of all these non-related people in the room listening in.
Even before the HIPPA regs came into effect, it would have been professionally unethical to do that, not to mention a waste of time, since any answer a patient might give under those circumstances is not guaranteed to be fully truthful.
Tens of thousands? TENS OF EFFING THOUSANDS?
Good God almighty, LeMonde is a very, very, very sick man.
Who knows if LA doped, but it's OVER dammit. Despite extensive testing, he was never caught during competition, his career is now over, and this is what the Feds are spending tax money on to prosecute?
The American people haven't been able to get the DOJ to even look at prosecuting ongoing voter fraud, rampant voter intimidation & blatant suppression of civil rights right under their collective noses, but boy howdy Uncle Sam is going to drain the US Treasury proving what a sports promotion organization tried obsessively for a decade to prove but somehow never could - a freaking FRENCH sports promotion company, at that.
It's a bicycle race, for heavens sake, & the alleged doping they're investigating, if it occurred at all, occurred a decade ago & a continent away.
Our tax dollars at work, people. Uneffenbelievable.
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