Luke Armstrong, son of disgraced professional cyclist Lance Armstrong, has been accused of sexually assaulting a teenager in 2018, according to an arrest affidavit issued earlier this month.
Armstrong, the oldest of Lance Armstrong’s five children, has been charged with sexual assault of a child—a second-degree felony—and faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. He was released on a personal recognizance bond on Tuesday.
The victim met Armstrong for the first time in June 2018 when she went to his family’s Austin, Texas mansion with a mutual friend. At the time, she was 16 and Armstrong was 18.
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Two days later, she went to a party and got drunk, according to details from the arrest affidavit reported by the Austin American-Statesman and KXAN Austin. Armstrong picked her up after she could not find a ride home, but she did not remember the car ride with him.
He allegedly sexually assaulted her in his home, and she woke up there the next morning. He drove her home and remained silent during the car ride, the affidavit says.
The girl reported the incident in November 2020 and, according to the arrest documents, recorded a phone call with Armstrong in December 2020 in which he admitted to having sex with her at his father Lance’s house.
Randy Leavitt, Armstrong’s attorney, claimed to the Austin American-Statesman that the pair were briefly in a relationship that summer and the encounter was consensual.
“A complete review of the facts will confirm what has been alleged absolutely did not occur and a proper and thorough legal process will exonerate Luke,” Leavitt said.
“What occurred three years ago in high school was not a crime and not a sexual assault. What it was was a consensual relationship then and it continued to be consensual between the two young people with both ultimately going their separate ways. These charges should never have been filed and certainly not three years later.”
Armstrong was sober during the night of the incident, according to a friend who witnessed him taking the girl back to his house, the affidavit said.
Investigators say the victim told six people about the assault. Four of them recalled that the girl “described the sex as non-consensual,” and one of them said they had been told about the assault a week after it happened, according to the affidavit.
Two of them had said that the girl talked about having nightmares and cried “about the assault years afterwards,” the document reads.
Armstrong is a student at Rice University and is set to graduate with a degree in sports management in 2022, according to his LinkedIn. He plays football for the school and is a graduate of Westlake High School.
Lance Armstrong was one of the world’s most decorated cyclists until 2012, when U.S. authorities revealed he’d used performance-enhancing drugs for most of his career. He was accused of being the ringleader of one of the most sophisticated, persistent doping programs ever seen in cycling.
