LOS ANGELES, CA (BRAIN)—A French judge has issued a national arrest warrant for U.S. cyclist Floyd Landis. It's in connection with a case of data hacking at a doping laboratory.
Judge Thomas Cassuto, based in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, is seeking to question Landis about computer hacking dating back to September 2006 at the Chatenay-Malabry lab, said Astrid Granoux, spokeswoman for Nanterre's prosecutor's office, according to ESPN and Associated Press reports. The laboratory had uncovered abnormally elevated testosterone levels in Landis' samples collected in the run-up to his 2006 Tour de France victory, leading to the eventual loss of his medal.
But Landis in an e-mail to the Los Angeles Times on Monday denied that a warrant had been served against him.
"I can't speak for Arnie [Baker] (Landis' longtime coach and adviser who also supposedly had been served a national warrant), but no attempt has been made to formally contact me," Landis said in the e-mail. "It appears to be another case of fabricated evidence by a French lab who is still upset a United States citizen believed he should have the right to face his accusers and defend himself."
(PHOTO by Jason Norman)