Editor’s note: Bicycling received a copy of the affidavit after initially publishing this story, and the text below has been revised to reflect that.
Warning: This story discusses a sexual assault.
- Luke Armstrong, the son of Lance Armstrong, has been charged with sexual assault of a minor, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by Bicycling.
- The girl, whose identity has not been released, told police that said she contacted Armstrong to drive her home from a party in June 2018, per the affidavit. She couldn’t remember the drive, but she remembers being raped in the Armstrong home.
- Armstrong’s lawyer denies the charges.
Luke Armstrong, Lance’s son, has been charged with sexual assault of a minor, as stated in an arrest affidavit from April 1, which was obtained by Bicycling from the Travis County District Clerk’s Office.
Luke Armstrong, now 21, is accused of raping a then-16-year-old girl in his father’s Austin, Texas, home in 2018. The girl, whose identity has not been made public, said that she had been drinking and was unable to find a ride home from a party on June 22, 2018, so she contacted Armstrong, per the affidavit.
The girl told police she couldn’t remember the drive to the Armstrong home, but that she did remember waking up on “a charcoal gray couch in a bedroom” in the Armstrong home, per the affidavit. She stated Armstrong brought her Topo Chico sparkling mineral water for her to drink and that he then began forcing himself on her.
She then remembers waking up on a bed without sheets as Armstrong was raping her, according to the affidavit. She said she tried pushing him off of her, but he was “too heavy to move,” and she passed out again shortly after. She later woke up alone, showered and dressed, and found Armstrong in his truck along with a mutual acquaintance who had driven to the Armstrong house with them. The girl said Armstrong didn’t speak to her during the drive to her home.
“What occurred three years ago in high school was not a crime and was not a sexual assault. It was a consensual relationship then and continued consensually between two young people with both ultimately going their separate ways,” said Randy Leavitt, Armstrong’s lawyer, according to KXAN Austin. “These charges should not have been filed and certainly not three years later.”
The girl also reported to police that she had only met Armstrong just days prior at his home, while there with a mutual friend, where they exchanged numbers. She took pictures and video inside the home.
“It wasn’t a one-time thing,” Leavitt said, according to KXAN Austin. “They had something of a relationship going on for a brief period of time.”
The girl reported the sexual assault to police on November 17, 2020. With assistance from the police, she recorded a phone call with Armstrong on December 8, 2020, in which Armstrong says they had sex in his father’s bedroom, and that he “remembered her taking her clothes off and walking to the bed herself,” according to the affidavit.
The affidavit also recounts interviews between the Austin Police Department and six people who the girl had told about the sexual assault. Four of the interviewees confirmed to the police that she had described the sex as non-consensual. Out of those four people, two shared that the girl still cried and had nightmares about being raped for “years afterwards.”
In Texas, the age of consent is 17, and there’s no statute of limitations for sexual assault of a child. There’s a “Romeo and Juliet” law that allows for consensual sex between an underage person and someone within three years of their age—but it must be consensual between both parties. Additionally, in Texas, ‘rape’ is legally defined as ‘sexual assault.’
Armstrong was released on a personal recognizance bond on April 6, according to KXAN Austin, meaning he didn’t have to pay bail. If he’s found guilty of sexual assault of a child, which is a second-degree felony, he faces up to 20 years in prison.
The National Sexual Assault Hotline is 1-800-656-4673. Or, chat online anonymously at rainn.org.
When she’s not out riding her mountain bike, Jessica is an editor for Popular Mechanics. She was previously an editor for Bicycling magazine.
