Former Lance Armstrong teammate Frankie Andreu tells IM that Dr. Larry Einhorn, esteemed oncologist with the IU School of Medicine and Lance Armstrong Foundation, was not present in the Indianapolis hospital room where Armstrong allegedly admitted to doping in 1996. But he wants to know the identities of the people who were.
“That’s the million-dollar question,” says Andreu. “If I knew that, all these problems probably would not exist.”
Last month, IM queried Dr. Einhorn—who treated Armstrong in the mid-’90s—about an affidavit in which Andreu claimed that at least two people in Indianapolis, whom the Andreus believe to be physicians, knew about Armstrong’s doping years before the recent scandal that stripped the cyclist of his Tour de France medals. Einhorn’s reply: “Utter nonsense.”
According to a transcript, Andreu’s wife, Betsy, stated in a deposition taken by attorneys for SCA Promotions, Inc., the Dallas-based insurance company that sued Armstrong last week for $12 million in prize money, that while Armstrong was in Indianapolis for cancer treatment, the couple heard him inform two “men in white coats” that he was on a cocktail of performance-enhancing drugs.
Betsy Andreu gave her deposition to SCA’s attorneys—in the presence of Armstrong—on Oct. 25, 2005, according to affidavits and transcripts. Two days later, on Oct. 27, the IU School of Medicine announced that the Lance Armstrong Foundation was donating $1.5 million to the university to fund Einhorn’s pioneering cancer research.
Mary Maxwell, development director for the Simon Cancer Center and one of the key players involved in securing the donation for the hospital, says she began courting the endowment from Armstrong’s foundation in 2004. “It was a year in the making,” says Maxwell, adding that the hospital would have had no way of knowing about the Andreus’ depositions, made just days before IU announced the gift.
Photos: Einhorn (by Tony Valainis); Betsy and Frankie Andreu
