Landis Case Costing Millions of Taxpayers Money
American taxes will pay for Floyd Landis' doping case, as the trial will take place in New York, which is America's most expensive city.
Floyd Landis was the 2006 Tour de France winner, who was summarily stripped of his medal last year due to a doping accusation. His ban from cycling should be in effect until the end of January 2009. He is then attempting to have his title restored by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which happens to be the final step in the series of appeals he had raised, which cost more than 2 million dollars combined. Incidentally, a significant portion of those two million dollars was paid using gederal funds.
His hearing will start on Wednesday in Manhattan, and will be closed to the public this time, unlike the very open, and extremely publicized hearing he had (and lost) last year. The hearing will also be significantly shorter, and will take only half the time it took on last year's hearing, which was held in Malibu California.
Despite the shorter amount of time, the hearing will still be very expensive, as another considerable portion of the cost will be subsidized by the USADA, who in turn, gets 70% of the $12 million annual budget they use from the federal government, the rest being taken from the U.S. Olympic committee. Doing the math, the prosecution of Landis' case could eat up almost 5 to 10 percent of the agency's annual budget.
To address this concern, USADA CEO Travis Tygart asserted that despite being more inclined to spend their resources on clean athletes, they're continuing with their prosecution of Landis because justice takes time and money, and they aim to subject each of their athletes to due process, where athletes have the right to defend themselves when their tests reveal positive.
The entire trial is said to be a "trial de novo" which means new case. This is because Landis isn't technically appealing to the last decision, but to the testimony they gave during the first hearing at the Pepperdine university.
A big part of the costs is paying for the witnesses' time, for both sides. A particularly juicy revelation of the last hearing was the tale of Dr. Wolfram Meier-Augenstein, who on his last hearing, had incurred travel expenses of $20,000 to California.
More costs come in the form of CAS, who will pay for the arbitrators, which include people from New Zealand and Paris, who need to travel to New York for the hearing. The CAS is mostly bankrolled by the International Olympic Committee.
Other estimated costs were revealed by former Landis spokesman Michael Henson, who estimated the cost of Landis' defense to reach up to $2 million by the time the trial ends, including the fee of Suh, who happened to be one of Los Angeles' top attorneys, and Howard Jacobs, a prolific attorney who has much experience representing several athletes in doping cases.
