WASHINGTON—A federal judge on Thursday said the Justice Department can proceed with a civil lawsuit alleging cyclist Lance Armstrong defrauded the government by accepting sponsorship money from the U.S. Postal Service while taking performance-enhancing drugs.

U.S. Judge Robert L. Wilkins in Washington, D.C., denied a request by Armstrong to dismiss the case in ruling the lawsuit could proceed.

The case started with a whistleblower lawsuit by former teammate Floyd Landis, who sued on behalf of the federal government in 2010. The False Claims Act allows private litigants like Landis to bring lawsuits claiming fraud against the government and share in any monetary recoveries.

The Justice Department decided last year to intervene in Landis’s case and filed its own superseding allegations against Armstrong. Government lawyers allege Armstrong’s cycling team defrauded the Postal Service because the two sides’ sponsorship agreement required the team to follow the rules of cycling’s governing bodies, which banned the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

The department said the Postal Service was deceived into paying $40 million to Armstrong’s team from 1998 to 2004, half of which went to Armstrong personally.

Armstrong admitted last year to doping throughout his cycling career and has been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles. If he and other defendants are found liable for making false claims, they could be forced to pay damages amounting to three times the amount of the claims.

Landis also has admitted to doping and was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title.

Armstrong, in seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed, argued the government waited more than a decade to file its suit because the Postal Service got everything it bargained for: tens of millions of dollars of publicity and exposure to millions of spectators at cycling events. He argued it was far too late to revisit the sponsorship now, when the government could have investigated doping allegations much earlier.

Read the full article at WSJ.com.

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