Floyd Landis has been charged with wire fraud in connection with his coverup on his doping in the 2006 Tour de France. If he repays donors to his defense fund in 3 years, he will avoid jail time and a big fine. His court appearance is tomorrow morning in San Diego.
According to ESPN, financial records for the FFF showed that 1,500 donors gave a total of $478,354.
The case will be dismissed if he can pay back the donors within three years.
“I’m glad to have a concrete procedure for repayment in place,” he told ESPN.com on Thursday. “For me, taking the step of making restitution to the donors who were misled back then is one more step in righting the wrong choices I made and allows me to turn the page and to focus on what’s next in life for me.
“I can never undo what happened, but to the extent that there are ways such as this that I can try to rectify things, I’ll be more able to focus on the future and living an honest life after having done them.”
Landis has said that some of the larger donors have indicated that they do not wish to be repaid.
His total legal costs of fighting his case are understood to have approached $2 million. His bid to clear his name of the Tour de France doping charges was unsuccessful.
If the deal had not been reached, he could have faced up to twenty years in prison, a quarter-million dollar fine and also had to repay the donors.
Previously, Landis went all the way to the Court of Arbitration for Sport with his defence. He lost his case there but continued to say he was innocent. However he made an about turn in the spring of 2010 when he met with USADA on April 20th, admitting using banned substances and, it is believed, also talking about widespread doping on the US Postal Service team.
Ten days later he sent an email to a number of organisations and individuals in cycling, laying out specific admissions and allegations. These were later repeated in emails made public in May of that year.
That in turn led to a federal investigation into the team that was unexpectedly dropped on February 3rd by United States Attorney Andre Birotte Jr, much to the surprise of federal agents who had been gathering evidence
USADA took up the reins, investigating Armstrong and others in relation to doping suspicions.
