Experts see Armstrong charges coming

AUSTIN, Texas, May 24 (UPI) -- Lance Armstrong could be heading for criminal charges as doping allegations against him mount, U.S. legal observers say.

Former teammate Tyler Hamilton is the latest to accuse the seven-time Tour de France champion of doping in a "60 Minutes" interview broadcast Sunday.

Hamilton said Armstrong used the blood-boosting hormone erythropeietin in 2001, and had told him the International Cycling Union helped cover up a positive test. The group angrily denied that charge Monday.

"We have progressed way beyond the rumor stage," Loyola University law professor Laurie Levenson told Armstrong's hometown newspaper, the Austin (Texas) American Statesman. "They are actively engaged in the grand jury stage, most likely with their eye toward an indictment. They are at the wrapping up stage rather than the beginning stage."

Peter Keane, a law professor at Golden Gate University School, agreed: "The kind of momentum that we are seeing in the Armstrong case is the same kind of momentum we saw in the past in the Bonds case and with other Olympic athletes."

But Keane added that while Barry Bonds and other steroid-using athletes were charged with perjury, Armstrong "looks more and more like he is the target of a government fraud investigation."