Lance Armstrong has agreed to pay the government $5 million to spare him from a false claims trial that was set to begin on May 7 in Washington, the Justice Department announced.
A jury was going to decide whether Armstrong defrauded cycling team sponsor the U.S. Postal Service by not disclosing his use of performance-enhancing drugs.
The government sought nearly $100 million in damages, calculated at three times the total amount of the sponsorship payments, while Armstrong was planning to argue that the sponsorship’s benefits were so lucrative that the government couldn’t have been harmed.
