Go to minute eleven. Exactly the same choice Landis had facing him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRZeh4KEz9s&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRZeh4KEz9s&feature=relmfu
Dr. Maserati
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Digger said:
Must admit - not sure why that's relevant to now.
I don't think he could make a limited confession - but he could have made up a story, "I got an injection in to my dodgy hip, maybe thats where the positive came from.....". Sure, he would lose the Tour but keep pretty much everything else.
Polish
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Dr. Maserati said:
That link is EVIDENCE of his denial of using testosterone at the TdF. And I do believe Floyd in this regard. Lab issues were the cause of problems. Floyd still believes in Lab issues does he not? No fraud as far as testosterone is concerned. Lab issues. Re-read the powerpoint please.
That is why I suggested that Floyd should have Lance and Greg as defense witnessess. The only 3 North Americans to win the TdF. All three with testing concerns. Coincidence?
MarkvW said:
No but my point is how much more do you want Floyd to be punished? He did not get funds from people and jet off into the sun and live a playboy lifestyle. He used the funds to defend himself. I admire David Walsh greatly and even he admits that the lab in question was 'incredibly sloppy'.
But my underlying point remains, how much more do you want him to be punished for one lie?
Dr. Maserati said:
Further up people are saying he should never have set up the fund because he could have given a limited confession. That's the context of why I am bringing it up.
Also that type of excuse wouldn't work as they used his blood parameters against him, in order to indicate blood doping.
MarkvW said:
hmmmmm ... I suppose ...
However, Floyd DID fully cooperate with the Feds during the Armstrong investigation so to, now, charge him with a crime might seem to some as a dangerous precedent wrt whistleblowers and their subsequent treatment by the federal government.
thehog
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Digger said:
The truth "some guys" on this forum want is that you confess by making up a medical excuse and say it was a one off. Not at any point do you name any former team mates or managers. No doping occurred prior to the incident.
Simples.
But if you get caught in this story then you're on your own and you’re a lying sack of sh!t and you let everyone down. You should be banished from the sport never return or be heard from again.
Also don't get any ideas about telling the whole story - ever. You shall burn in hell for this! Walk the desert for 40 years and be labeled the son of Satan.
People find Floyd hard to grapple with. He’s somewhat of a paradox. It was much easier when he was lying. He was easier to explain back then – tell the truth we said. All of it.
Now he decides to tell the truth like everyone wanted and we don’t believe him! Or he should have done it a different way “back then”.
Too late. It is what it is and sorry to say but the reason “some guys” are NOW even angrier with him is because he is telling the whole truth.
What poeple are really saying is; "couldn't you tell the bit about your one time doping and protect everything else including my fantasy about USPS"?
Brave man our Floyd.
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thehog said:
So you don't confuse me with some guys--or them with yourself in weaker moments--I have no truck with Floyd being all in (or out). At any point.
I think he could have handled a few moments with more finesse, but, again, it's not for me to say.
Fantasies about USPS are strictly your own (past).
My interest in the limited-confession as a discussion is strictly as one possible avenue in a life philosophy.
Nothing more. Don't start breathing heavy over all of this.
thehog
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Glenn_Wilson said:You keep bringing this up.
I keep bringing it up because if you whiteboard this whole great big bloody mess you end up scratching your head at it all.
The very guy who was working with the Federal Investigators (in part) on the case against Armstrong is then charged. Not during the investigation but after its unexpectedly dropped on Super bowl weekend. Now he's wasn't charged was making false accusations in the Armstrong case - no. He is mysteriously charged with fraud dating back to 2006 with raising funds under false pretenses?? Even when many of the large donors have shrugged their shoulders and stated they knew what they were getting into. Why now? I keep asking and why in the state of California? (access to case files etc.) If there was a case against Floyd then it should have ran parallel to the Armstrong investigation because they are almost one of the same.
It doesn't add up.
My theory and its just a theory (for now) is Nov's team would have know the pressure coming from Fabani and taken certain steps in the event the case was dropped. He had found way too much information and well all too aware of Armstrong's "feel good" connections. Thus he devised the plan if the pin was ever pulled and Floyd agreed that he would go to Plan B – DefCon 5!!! (The leak to the one media source Cyclingnews has raised my eyebrow also - on easter weekend to boot! with Armstrong traveling to Paris-Roubaix and subsequently hiding from the media - hmmmm....)
Armstrong is completely farked no matter which way you look at it - and he knows it. Even if Floyd is found guilty and put away a lot of information will come out. A tremendous amount of information that Armstrong doesn't want to see in the public domain – so much information people will wonder why the case was dropped. If the case against Floyd is dropped then Floyd can come out and say what he wants and finally talk in full and present some of the evidence that he's sat on and the wire taps he wore etc. Armstrong cannot and will not take a defamation case against him - he can't as again all "stuff" comes out again.
I'd say checkmate. Well done Floyd and well done Novitsky.
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Digger said:
I'm not pretending to be an expert. It is easy to speculate with Floyd, because we have a pretty good idea of what he did. It's harder to speculate with Lance (who may have done more, and worse), because a lot is unknown. I'd still have a hard time justifying jail for Lance because he has no priors.
But the Lance stuff is all academic now. Floyd's issues are real.
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Digger said:
I feel he has suffered enough as a professional cyclist, but I think criminal accountability is also necessary.
Take this analogy: A fifty year old doctor writes himself unlawful prescriptions for Vicodin. He's caught. He loses his family and his profession, and he's thrust into bankruptcy and drug treatment. That dude has suffered! I still think he should be prosecuted, though. The mercy should come in at his sentencing.
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Digger said:
I feel he has suffered enough a a professional cyclist, but I think criminal accountability is also necessary.
Take this analogy: A fifty year old doctor writes himself unlawful prescriptions for Vicodin. He's caught. He loses his family and his profession, and he's thrust into bankruptcy and drug treatment. That dude has suffered! I still think he should be prosecuted, though. The mercy should come in at his sentencing.
That kind of case is way harsher than Floyd's and it happens all the time.
MarkvW said:
Bernie Madoff had no priors.
If you are not "pretending" to be an expert is it because you see yourself as an expert?
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Doping is not a criminal act, either, in the U.S., and even in Europe, the idea that it should be is quite new and rarely has the notion been followed up. The issue people who think Floyd should be prosecuted are hanging their case on is lying to raise funds. So I repeat, if lying about doping to raise legal defense money is a crime, why isn’t lying to raise campaign money a crime?
In fact, the parallels between extramarital affairs and doping are striking:
1) Affairs by themselves are perfectly legal and ordinary, just as taking many drugs is.
2) Affairs by married people are still legal, but put them at risk in one specific relationship, the one they have with their spouse. Likewise, taking PES is often quite legal, but puts an athlete at risk in a specific relationship, with their team and their sport.
3) Lying about an extramarital affair is not a crime unless it is done under oath, and even then it is rarely prosecuted. Likewise, with lying about doping.
Given these parallels, I’m still waiting to hear a logical train of thought that makes a persuasive case that Floyd should be charged with a crime, whereas Larry Craig, for example—who collected tons of campaign funds on a family values platform, only later to be arrested for homosexual advances in a toilet stall--should not be. Larry Craig, just like Floyd, lost his job. But no one came after him later and forced him to give back all those campaign funds. Why not? He clearly lied to induce people to give him that money.
And I'll answer my own question: because though he lied to get people to donate to his campaign, he used all that money for the purpose he said he would. Just as Floyd did. Or maybe he didn't:
Yes, I’ve thought since this news broke that maybe the case against Floyd is misuse of funds. If they have evidence he used this money for other than his defense, then he would and should be in trouble.
Thing is, though, given he was in desperate need of money to pay all those lawyers, why would he use any of the money for anything else? And what would that anything else be? I can see someone salting away some of the money if the legal needs were taken care of, but given the huge expenses there, that seems unlikely.
No, because the case against Edwards is not primarily that he lied about an extramarital affair, but that he misused campaign funds. He used them for purposes other than what he stated they were being used for. As I keep emphasizing, and as certain people here keep refusing to acknowledge, that is the key issue here.
I'm not a lawyer, and I could be wrong, but if I am, there are some rather serious consequences. If it is illegal for someone who is in fact guilty to solicit funds from the public for his defense, then the only people who could do that are those involved in political test cases, who admit their guilt. An ordinary person charged with a crime could not.
For suppose he did, and then was offered a plea bargain. If he accepted it, he could later be charged with fraud. Granted, people who accept plea bargains, frequently insist they were innocent, and only accepted it to avoid a long and expensive trial. But still, they are guilty legally, and in fact, most people who cop a plea are probably really guilty of a more serious crime. So if what Floyd did was a crime, anyone who raised public funds for his defense would not be able to plea bargain. Seems to me this is a pretty serious problem.
Fixed that for you.
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Merckx index said:
No one said doping is a crime. It is in violation of the ruling codes of the profession to which FL belonged. There is no other issue in play. If you're seriously asking the question about politicians, perhaps you should move.
The reference to Edwards was a joke in so far as he did get caught misusing funds. That aside, the distinction is that sexual misconduct is not directly relevant to the job that one does as a candidate. I answered this for you already.
You keep wanting this to be about offenses, I am suggesting that it is about (mis)representation.
Again, before you repeat the same point, how candidates present themselves personally or biographically is irrelevant to the requirements of the job that they do.
The hearings on the other hand, were not part of the Floyd's job, they were discretionary and they took up federal funding.
Similarly, you don't like the word innocence, but you have no problem with the word guilt. Floyd was not charged with or facing charges for something he might be found guilty of by a criminal court. It was a discretionary decision to fight it. Not something he was compelled to do by law. By the same token your plea bargain example is equally irrelevant. One has to fight criminal charges; you don't get to opt out of going to court because the ordeal would be too much. Floyd could have.
You refuse to acknowledge this even though you stated it upthread: there was no criminal element in Floyd's situation in relation to cycling and its governing bodies. None.
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Just as an extramarital affair is a violation of the marriage vow. The penalty is divorce, just as the penalty for doping is suspension. Floyd paid the penalty for violating the ruling codes of his profession, just as politicians caught in extramarital affairs frequently pay the penalty for that violation of the marriage ruling codes.
No, I am only bringing in offenses to draw parallels. I agree with you completely that it is about misrepresentation. And if you can't see that the political examples involve misrepresentation, I don't know what more I can say.
In the first place, the degree of relevance to the job one does is not relevant or material. You don’t seem to grasp that. The issue is purely about lying to solicit funds. As I pointed out earlier, Floyd’s lies about his guilt/innocence were immaterial to the outcome of his case. As you said, it is about misrepresentation. That being the case, the degree of relevance to the job is immaterial. Misrepresentation can occur regardless of the materiality.
In the second place sexual misconduct is relevant. If it were not, why would the Republican party takes steps to remove such men from public office? They do it because they believe that the candidate in fact cannot do the job properly under these conditions. The party very definitely does believe how candidates present themselves is directly relevant to the job requirements. When they force a candidate to step down, they are in effect saying he never should have been elected in the first place.
You seem to think I'm confused about guilt/innocence or whether something was a crime or not. I am not confusing these. I am simply drawing an analogy between criminal acts and rule-breaking. As I clearly stated, neither doping nor extra-marital affairs constitute crimes, most of the time.
No, one does not have to fight criminal charges. One can accept them and pay the penalty. Most people fight them because they regard the penalty as severe. But the penalty Floyd was faced with paying--losing his job for several years, giving up a lot of previous earnings, an enormous reduction in his market value when he could return--was also quite severe. More severe than the penalty for many criminal acts.
You don't seem to understand that fighting a charge is always discretionary. One is never compelled by law to fight any charge. One is only compelled either to fight the charge or pay the penalty. The only difference between a doping charge and a criminal charge in that respect is that in the latter case one does have to go to court. But if one goes to court and pleads guilty, the case is finished, just as it is if one accepts the doping charge.
If I understand your argument, you think Craig did not misrepresent himself, because his lie was not about a specific code that he violated, whereas Floyd’s lie was. Floyd as a racer signed a document in which he vowed not to dope, whereas Craig as a politician did not. But why is that material? If someone seeks public funds for medical expenses that he doesn’t actually have, the lie is not about violating a signed code. One is not claiming one signed a code, when in fact one did not. One is simply lying about how the money will be used.
So where do you get the idea that the codes of the job are relevant? Apparently you think they are relevant in cases where the person did in fact use the money for the stated purpose. But why? Exactly how is the fact that Floyd signed a code whereas Craig did not material to the question of fraud? You seem to think if the code is implicit, as it was in the case for Craig, then no fraud is involved, but why?
Let’s try to make Floyd’s situation more like Craig’s. Suppose Floyd had raised public money to sponsor himself, and had told everyone who donated that he had always raced clean in the past and would continue to do so. But in this hypothetical example, he didn’t have to sign an anti-doping document in order to race. He raced for a team entirely funded by public donations, or at least he was.
Then it later came out that he doped, both before and after he was sponsored. I take it in that case you would not think Floyd committed fraud. But how is this different from the actual situation he faces? In both cases, he told the same lie to get money. You apparently think the lie is more serious in the case of signing a document, but I don’t understand why. If it’s the same lie, and the same amount of money, why is the signing of some document material?
Or maybe you would consider it fraud. You might argue that Floyd's doping was directly relevant to his success as a racer, and therefore to how well invested his sponsorship would be. Whereas Craig's extramarital affair was not directly relevant to his performance as a politician. But then a code has nothing to do with it. And in any case, this still ignores that the key issue is the lie, and the effect it has on performance. Floyd's doping was relevant to his success as a racer only if the doping were discovered, in which case he would no longer be able to race effectively. Just as Craig's affair was relevant to his performance as a politician only if it were discovered.
I don't know how you would come down here, but it seems to me that you are picking at differences that are not material to fraud.
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Merckx index said:
You conveniently omit the fact that Floyd subsequently chose to fight that situation.
The fact that I disagree with you doesn't mean I fail to grasp anything you're saying. It is not particularly dense or complicated.
In Floyd's case the relevance of the presentation to the case he fought is directly at stake here. That you have decided to make it about the direct use of funds to fight the case is not of issue.
It was not a criminal case. No matter how many times you go back to the technicalities of the adjudication, that won't change.
Sexual misconduct is relevant to a public's perception of that job; it is not in violation of the codes of the job. Again, you seem to be having trouble grasping that. No, they, Republicans, aren't saying that about the removal of a candidate from office. You are saying that. Some might, others wouldn't. Similarly, one would have to be immensely thick, not to see that the political examples are about misrepresentation. The similarities end there; this isn't charades. How the money is solicited, the claims made and ultimately, the professional application of those funds and the outcome of campaigning are all completely different. If you can't recognize or understand the vast differences between political office and commercial cycling, I also don't really know what else to say to you. (That politics are venal and corrupt is utterly beside the point--although it seems to be your basic point of access.)
Again, I don't think you're confused about issues of guilt, innocence and rule breaking. What I think you're doing is applying all of your accumulated knowledge of cycling court to this situation as if the act of raising defense funds to contest a cycling decision should be equivalent to raising money to fight a criminal case--or running for office. They are not the same.
You say you are drawing an analogy. No offense, but I find your analogies faulty and not particularly useful. As was stated by Caruut upthread, I find they are smuggling in a moral element to this discussion that is not germane or illuminating--and may even be disingenuous.
And beyond that point as you're editing the post, you're being ridiculous. Look, choosing to fight a cycling decision is not the same, as, say, being put on trial for murder. Yes, you can just confess, but it's a little different than just paying a "penalty." And you generally can't just kick it at home with the wife and daughter while the trial is going on. Nor do you get to go home if you just "admit" and pay the "penalty."
Floyd or any cyclist could say "I quit." And walk. You do not have that option in criminal proceedings. Unless you flee of course, but again the repercussions and legal purchase are completely different. There is a complete distinction. One is compelled by law to go to court when charged by a city, town, state, or govt--one is at the least, even if opting out of the fight or defense, required to acknowledge the authority of the court as temporarily having *full* jurisdiction over one's life and mobility. That requirement simply does not obtain in cycling court. It is not the same. So can you bump up the civics lesson a bit?
Out of all of the things that you seem to think I fail to grasp or don't understand, there is only one, and that is why you are committed to finding banal parallels with other life situations when the facts of this one remain mostly unknown?
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