Novitzky vs Lance

FransJacques

Maybe it's been b/c the forum was down but I've not heard a peep outta either side since July I guess it's been.

Or was it the chance meeting with Hamilton in the sushi restaurant in Aspen?

Whatever, does anyone know the progress or current status of the story?

Is the silence good or bad for Lances chances?

Cheers.

cajun_cyclist

Moving at a snail's pace, hey, it's November and was Contador's case going to have a verdict? Do people even really care?

The heat and pressure of the situation have gone away a bit to me perhaps largely because Evans took the Tour. Otherwise, rightfully or wrongfully, to have a Champion that many suspect is not clean really chides a lot of people the wrong way, Contador? has been heckled like Armstrong was.

Kind of like in watching some sport and a team you hate gets knocked out of the competition, all is well with the world again!

dave_1

the Grand jury was operating by June 2010, as Hincapie confirmed its existance in the TDF 2010..that's 18 months ago and no indictment. I read elsewhere "In federal courts, a US Attorney may impanel a grand jury for 18 months, and can request a 6 month extension above that for a protracted investigation".

Maybe it is over?

FransJacques

Dave I reckon you're right. In the States any public prosecutor operates using business case criteria such as: cost and time to build a case vs liklihood of presecution, is it in the public good? etc.

Maybe his superiors pulled the plug? The big draw was that USPS is a public company so in effect the Federal government was funding a possible drugs cheat hence the need to look for scalpes. But given everything else in US politics that urge could have subsided now.

blazing_saddles

Why do I get the sense of deja vu?
Not to get bogged down in yet more pointless speculation,
but just as with prosecution, don't you think we would have heard
something by now, if the investigation had been dropped?

More like what CC says: Moving at a snail's pace, but sure, to one of the above conclusions.

ddraver

Don't imagine Larry would have kept quiet if it had been dropped do you?

dave_1

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Why do I get the sense of deja vu?
Not to get bogged down in yet more pointless speculation,
but just as with prosecution, don't you think we would have heard
something by now, if the investigation had been dropped?

More like what CC says: Moving at a snail's pace, but sure, to one of the above conclusions.

The grand jury can either be extended by 6 months from the norm of 18 months or closed but it can't move at a "snail's pace". Is there any conclusion of a grand jury? If no indictments served then no news..finished

ps. Blaze , you have a big advert "your favourite mag delivered to your door" or something dangling below your post...did you attach that or someone else?

Pokerface

Dave_1 wrote:

ps. Blaze , you have a big advert "your favourite mag delivered to your door" or something dangling below your post...did you attach that or someone else?

In case you missed the whole forum 'upgrade' thing that went on last week - we are now blessed with banner ads in the middle of all threads. The longer the thread, the more banner ads appear. And they are random and rotating - meaning each time you view the same post they will change.

Isn't progress great?

andyp

Use Firefox, get an advert blocking plugin.

dave_1

andyp wrote:

Use Firefox, get an advert blocking plugin.

cheers, just got ad block plugin. No advert visible now

cajun_cyclist

The grand jury can either be extended by 6 months from the norm of 18 months or closed but it can't move at a "snail's pace". Is there any conclusion of a grand jury? If no indictments served then no news..finished
- Dave 1

Had to log in again, took awhile, I am referring to the above post talking about the Statute of Limitations and yes, that is correct, however here, I think the Federal Prosecutors already laid out that one of the charges here involves "conspiracy". Whenever you have conspiracy, there begins an odd time line because look at it this way, if you have a champion who deceived the public, that conspiracy is still running. Now, this may not be the exact matter of conspiracy the Feds are looking at but I do seem to remember they were looking at conspiracy charges. Maybe it's about selling the bikes to fund the US Postal team. Conspiracy to commit fraud or similar: http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/4326/ ... arges.aspx

Conspiracy is a continuing offense. For statutes such as 18 U.S.C. § 371, which require an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy, the statute of limitations begins to run on the date of the last overt act. See Fiswick v. United States, 329 U.S. 211 (1946); United States v. Butler, 792 F.2d 1528 (11th Cir. 1986). For conspiracy statutes which do not require proof of an overt act, such as RICO (18 U.S.C. § 1961) or 21 U.S.C. § 846, the government must allege and prove that the conspiracy continued into the limitations period. The crucial question in this regard is the scope of the conspiratorial agreement, and the conspiracy is deemed to continue until its purpose has been achieved or abandoned. See United States v. Northern Imp. Co., 814 F.2d 540 (8th Cir. 1987); United States v. Coia, 719 F.2d 1120 (11th Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 973 (1984). http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_ ... m00652.htm

I'm no legal eagle but I do know that often when conspiracy is involved the Statute of Limitations often has a different set of guidelines.

RichN95.

This case will never be closed. However, it's very likely that people will stop working it.
Frankly, in these austere times, spending huge amounts on prosecuting an American for cheating at sport in France isn't really top of the priority list.

Novitsky and his crew have spent eight years trying to get Barry Bonds, and to little effect. How much did that cost? They're not going to repeat that.

Now I expect that the Cycling News forum will see every little thing as a sign of the case progressing until 2050, but I'd personally be surprised if this case hasn't been quietly canned so resources can be focused on crimes that effect real Americans.

dave_1

RichN95 wrote:

This case will never be closed. However, it's very likely that people will stop working it.
Frankly, in these austere times, spending huge amounts on prosecuting an American for cheating at sport in France isn't really top of the priority list.

Novitsky and his crew have spent eight years trying to get Barry Bonds, and to little effect. How much did that cost? They're not going to repeat that.

Now I expect that the Cycling News forum will see every little thing as a sign of the case progressing until 2050, but I'd personally be surprised if this case hasn't been quietly canned so resources can be focused on crimes that effect real Americans.

Definitely a risky venture to prosecute. Grand juries are secret and so from what I have read they do not inform you they closed down..you just don't hear anything more. I was surprised at ex Leopard/Becca joining sides with Bruyneel and Shack and also Hincapie starting at under 23 team when these people and sponsors would be immediately damaged, taken out the sport/suspended if Novitsky gets his way..it all suggests there is no fear of anything being done about LA in the next few years

Monty Dog

Who said Armstrong was the primary target? There are other big fish including Tom Weisel and his cronies his bankrolled the whole enterprise and may be indicted on charges of fraud and tax evasion - Armstrong was possibly just the 'mule'. The US Gov't doesn't care about a bike race in France, but they do care about the abuse of Federal money to fund criminal enterprise.

cougie

Like it or not - Lance is a Hero in the States. If they send him down - will that reflect glory on the Investigators and their Agency ? Or just pee off the public ? Its probably not just about the law.

cajun_cyclist

cougie wrote:

Like it or not - Lance is a Hero in the States. If they send him down - will that reflect glory on the Investigators and their Agency ? Or just pee off the public ? Its probably not just about the law.

Roger Clemmons, Barry Bonds, Marian Jones. I don't know if Lance is immune using this logic and no, I don't think skin colour is a factor either, I can't think of the guy's name, I don't really follow baseball but the St. Louis Cardinals had that big slugger and though I don't believe he's been prosecuted, his image has certainly suffered. He helped break the home run record that year with Sammy Sosa. I can't remember his name at all. Mark McGwire? maybe that's it.

blazing_saddles

A bit grey added to this debate:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/armstro ... ral-battle

As for the current public delay in proceedings, Stichel said that grand juries can often take months to make decisions and that although no new witnesses have been called, it does not mean more could be summoned in the future.

“You can read all kinds of things into the delay. Maybe they’ve heard from all the people they need to and they’re wrapping up their work. It’s very difficult from the outside to know what’s going on.

“I represented a client in a civil case while the defendant was also under investigation by a grand jury. There were several phases where the jury would be active and then times when things wouldn’t happen for several months,”

sherer

so to sum up either the case is still being looked into, or it's been dropped but no one really knows what is going on.

Despite the CN article which is really a none story on nothing no one really has a clue what is going on.

RichN95.

Sadly, Novitsky isn't on twitter for updates.

Found out interesting stuff about @lancearmstrong. LOL

@bruyneel Just chillin', waiting for the grillin'

@ghincapie any chance of #ff ? I thought we connected.

RT "@moonhoax Armstrong is a liar and a fraud"

Here's a pic of me a @HerasOfficial singing karaoke in Madrid. DJ Nov on the MC. Lolz.