In what is thought to be the first suit falling out of the Armstrong interview scandal, the action was filed in the California state capital Sacramento by Rob Stutzman, a public relations executive who served as a deputy chief of staff for former state Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jonathan Wheeler, a chef and amateur cyclist, reports the Reuters news agency.

Cheated and betrayed

The men claim that they bought Mr Armstrong’s books It’s Not About the Bike and Every Second Counts because they believed in his drug-free return to cycling after surviving testicular cancer.
According to the report, the two men said they felt ‘duped’, ‘cheated’ and ‘betrayed’ after Mr Armstrong’s doping confession in an interview with US talk show host Oprah Winfrey.
The lawsuit accuses Mr Armstrong and his publishers, Penguin and Random House, of violating consumer protection laws on false advertising and fraud by selling the books as works of non-fiction.

Dismissed

Penguin will be represented in the suit by the Minneapolis law firm Dorsey & Whitney, who represented author Greg Mortenson in a similar case, which was dismissed by a Montana federal judge last year. Dorsey partner Jonathan Herman declined to comment on how the publisher will respond to the California claims but said: ‘As far as we're concerned, this is also a case that should be dismissed.’