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September 18, 2023
United States of America
vs
Eric Lira (Defendant)
Complain
District Court for the Southern District of New York
21MAG12412
Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Michael J. Driscoll, the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), announced the unsealing of the first criminal charge under the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act, signed into law on December 4, 2020, which proscribes doping schemes at international sports competitions, including the Olympic Games.
The Complaint unsealed alleges that ERIC LIRA, a “naturopathic” therapist operating principally in the area of El Paso, Texas, obtained various performance enhancing drugs (“PEDs”) and distributed those PEDs to certain athletes in advance of, and for the purpose of cheating at, the 2020 Olympic Games held in Tokyo in the summer of 2021. LIRA was taken into federal custody and is expected to be presented in the Western District of Texas before U.S. Magistrate Judge Miguel A. Torres.
The charges in this Complaint arises from an investigation of a scheme to provide Olympic athletes with PEDs, including drugs widely banned throughout competitive sports such as human growth hormone and the “blood building” drug erythropoietin, in advance of and for the purpose of corrupting the 2020 Olympic Games, which convened in Tokyo in the summer of 2021.
LIRA, who claims to be a “kinesiologist and naturopathic” doctor operating principally in and around El Paso, Texas, obtained misbranded versions of these, and other, prescription drugs from sources in Central and South America, before bringing those drugs into the United States and distributing them to, among other, the two athletes referred to in the Complaint as “Athlete-1” and “Athlete-2.”
Ultimately in May 2023 LIRA, 43, of El Paso, Texas, pled guilty to violating the Rodchenkov Act, which carries a maximum potential sentence of 10 years in prison.
