French judge Thomas Cassuto has issued a national arrest warrant for Landis, seeking to question him about computer hacking in September 2006 at the Chatenay-Malabry lab near Paris. French anti-doping officials claim Floyd Landis hacked into a doping lab to obtain information for his defense against doping charges. How do they know? Because he presented the documents in court as an example of how his testing files and information were mishandled by the lab.
France’s anti-doping chief Pierre Bordry says “Landis used the hacked files for his defense, that’s how we discovered the whole scheme,” Bordry said. “He wanted to show that the lab made mistakes in the handling of the tests.”
“Apparently the judge traced the case back to the beginning,” Bordry said. “I can’t say I’m happy with this news because I would have preferred there was no Landis case.”
After discovering the hacking, the French lab upgraded security to protect its computer systems.
In 2006, the lab had uncovered abnormally elevated testosterone levels in Landis’ samples leading up Tour de France. Landis (in)famously started stage 17 of that year’s Tour more than eight minutes behind Oscar Pereiro but made a miraculous recovery from the prior day’s bonk to come within 30 seconds by the end of the stage. Landis ended up winning that year, but was later stripped of the title.
The warrant was issued on January 28 after Landis failed to reply to a summons in November 2009, and Cassuto has also issued a warrant for Dr. Arnie Baker, one of Landis’ coaches and advisers. The arrest warrant is only applicable on French soil, but could be expanded to an international warrant in the future.
Surely by now Flandis must be thinking “I’m le tired.”
Via ESPN. Thanks to Scott V. for the tip!
