Floyd Landis Convicted in Hacking Incident Related to Steroid Case

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Floyd Landis has been convicted of receiving steroid-testing documents that were illegally obtained from a French laboratory accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The Chatenay-Malabry laboratory was responsible for testing Landis’ urine and blood samples for the presence of anabolic steroids and performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) during the 2006 Tour de France. Landis was initially declared the winner of the 2006 Tour until anti-doping controls suggested that he had used the anabolic steroid testosterone.

The Chatenay-Malabry laboratory reported that their computer systems had been hacked using a “Trojan Horse” program in November 2006. The malicious program was sent as an email attachment to laboratory personnel. The Trojan Horse was loaded and executed after the recipient opened the attachment. Confidential laboratory documents, specifically data related to Floyd Landis’ steroid-tainted samples, were allegedly removed and altered.

Pierre Bordry, head of the French Anti-Doping Agency, first suspected Landis was involved in the hacking incident when confidential files turned up as part of his defense to the steroid charges.

“Landis used the hacked files for his defense, that’s how we discovered the whole scheme,” Bordry said to the Associated Press. “He wanted to show that the lab made mistakes in the handling of the tests.”

Prosecutors had alleged that Floyd Landis and his coach Arnie Baker masterminded the plot to hack the laboratory computer systems. The Trojan horse was allegedly emailed from a computer that shared the same IP address as Arnie Baker’s computer.

Prosecutors ultimately failed to prove that Landis and Baker ordered the hacking of the computers. They were convicted only of receiving hacked documents and were given 12 month suspended sentences.

While Landis spent millions of dollars vigorously denying the steroid charges in court, he eventually admitted that he, along with most of the peloton, routinely used steroids and performance-enhancing drugs.

In a series of messages to Steve Johnson, the chief executive of USA Cycling, Landis wrote that he spent $90,000 per year on a doping regimen that included the anabolic steroid testosterone, human growth hormone (hGH), erythropoietin (EPO), female hormones and insulin.

Landis accused several former United States Postal Service (USPS) teammates of also using banned steroids and PEDs. The accused cyclists included Lance Armstrong, George Hincapie, Levi Leipheimer and David Zabriskie.

Source:

Cycling News. (November 10, 2011). Landis convicted in hacking case. Retrieved from http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/landis-convicted-in-hacking-case\