Down in the valley, General Custer Floyd Landis looks at the masses of USADA (US Anti-Doping Agency) and WADA warriors encircling him above. Can Landis find a way out of this predicament? And who is footing the bill on this process: Landis's defense fund, and your taxpayer checkbook (financing the prosecution). Hey, at least we will have a final decision on the 2006 Tour de France.
US cyclist Floyd Landis, stripped of his 2006 Tour de France victory for doping, began making his appeal to a three-man panel from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) here on Wednesday.
The private hearing is expected to continue through Monday with no comments from any of the participants, both Landis and the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) having agreed to the closed-door session unlike last May's open US hearing.
Landis, 32, has denied wrongdoing and fought his positive test for steroid testosterone on July 20, 2006, but a USADA arbitration panel ruled 2-1 against him last September, resulting in a two-year ban through January 29, 2009.
The International Cycling Union stripped Landis of his 2006 crown after that verdict, awarding the title to Spain's Oscar Pereiro.
Also like General Custer, Landis costs the tax payers a chunk of money. MSNBC covers this story:
The (Landis) hearing starts Wednesday at a Manhattan law office. Unlike the explosive arbitration hearing Landis lost last May, this one will be closed to the public and is scheduled to last five days — less than half the time of last year’s hearing in Malibu, Calif.
But it will still be costly, and a good chunk of the cost will be footed by USADA, which gets about 70 percent of its $12 million annual budget from the federal government, and the rest from the U.S. Olympic Committee.
When all of USADA’s expenses are added up, it’s possible prosecuting the Landis case from start to finish could eat up between 5 and 10 percent of the agency’s annual budget.
“Generally, we would always prefer to spend our time and resources in supporting clean athletes and not having to prosecute guilty ones,” USADA CEO Travis Tygart said Friday. “But justice takes time and money, and that’s part of the process we have in the United States. Athletes have the right to defend themselves when they have positive tests.”...
Some witnesses are paid for their time, with the sides paying the expenses of the witnesses they call. One of the more interesting revelations of the last hearing was the tale of Dr. Wolfram Meier-Augenstein, an expert called by Landis, whose travel expenses included a $20,000 charter flight to California.
CAS, largely bankrolled by the International Olympic Committee and various sports federations, will pay for arbitrators — including one from New Zealand and one from Paris — to travel to New York for the hearing.
In May, Landis’ spokesman Michael Henson — who has since left the Landis camp — estimated the cost of the cyclist’s defense alone could reach $2 million by the time it was over. That would include fees for Suh, one of the top attorneys in Los Angeles, and Howard Jacobs, a high-profile attorney who represents several athletes in doping cases. Jacobs will not appear at the CAS hearing.
(More after the jump, and an ironic twist to the story)
Does it bother Landis and his lawyer that resources are being used up?
In the past, Landis and Suh have said they have little concern over depleting USADA’s coffers, because it’s their belief USADA runs an unfair system that is rigged against athletes.
“Everyone talks about how much money has been spent on this case, but they had twice what we had,” Suh said in an interview last September. “They had more experts at their beck and call. They spent much more than we did. That’s always been part of the system, that they’ve always had more resources than the athlete. This is the first time it’s even been close.”
The biggest USADA expense are legal fees. There were four lawyers from the Denver-based firm of Holme, Roberts and Owen at the arbitration hearing in May. Top lawyers at Denver firms can bill up to $400 an hour. Though the preparation work won’t be as intense for this hearing as the first one, it’s easy to see the bill for the CAS proceedings reaching five figures.
There are also plane flights, hotel rooms and other expenses, not only for the attorneys but for witnesses called by USADA.
The USOC, which paid administrative fees for the case last May, is off the hook for this one — though the federation still provides USADA about 30 percent of its annual budget.
USADA uses its $12 million to run about 8,000 doping tests a year, mostly on American Olympic or potential Olympic athletes. The agency is also responsible for education and developing more effective tests to stop drug cheats.
Maybe the biggest irony is USADA is spending this money to prosecute an athlete who has never competed, and has no plans to compete, for the U.S. Olympic team. He still falls under the USADA umbrella because he’s American.
It is true an athlete should be allowed to appeal a case in proper protocol for due process. However, it is not cheap. As we say, when a controversy goes to the forensic process, no one wins except the billable hours people.
So there you go, the Tour de France, -- ready for the hyperbole -- in part financed and determined by the US Taxpayer.
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