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EVENTS
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
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Sponsor fighting defense subpoenas
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Defense lawyers for two indicted Olympic bid executives have demanded 15 years of corporate and bank records from an Olympic sponsor that is refusing to cooperate, calling the effort a "fishing expedition." In papers filed Wednesday, Jet Set Sports asked a federal magistrate to quash subpoenas that could reveal its most confidential dealings with the world's Olympic organizations. The defense sought information on any cash or perks Jet Set has given to 159 members or ex-members of the International Olympic Committee, among other Olympic officials. The VIP travel broker is at the center of the U.S. Justice Department's most explosive Olympic allegation -- that Salt Lake bid chief Tom Welch and his deputy, Dave Johnson, pocketed $130,000 in cash-stuffed envelopes handed off by Jet Set's owner and a courier at airports and hotels from Lillehammer, Norway, to Salt Lake City. The bid leaders maintain they spent every penny of the money on Salt Lake's Olympic effort, not to enrich themselves, and their lawyers say the government can't prove otherwise. The cash wasn't recorded on bid-committee books, deposited in bank accounts or shown on tax filings. Jet Set stood to make an enormous profit from the covert contributions, which are undisputed. The company, owned by Bosnian-born Sead Dizdarevic, who got his start at the 1984 Sarajevo Games, sells hospitality packages of Olympic tickets, travel and lodging to the world's richest Olympic spectators, the highest of high rollers. Jet Set attorney William Purcell said the defense already has everything the New Jersey-based company turned over to government investigators and a federal grand jury. In a court memorandum, Purcell said defense lawyers are on a fishing expedition that can't resolve "the only undisputed factual issue involving the cash contributions detailed in the indictment -- how the defendants used the cash and whether that use was authorized" by their board of trustees. Dizdarevic testified a year ago before the grand jury, saying he routinely made Olympic contributions, but he was unable to say how Welch and Johnson spent the $130,000. Purcell said the defense subpoena is an effort to "troll the waters of the sea's otherwise undiscoverable material in the small hope that something beneficial might rise to the surface." Blair Brown, one of Welch's lawyers, drafted the Jet Set subpoenas. He didn't return a call Wednesday from The Associated Press. Purcell said Brown refused to narrow his requests, which demand records from Dizdarevic, seven of his companies, some of them defunct, Jet Set's law firm and its former law firm, plus another company that Purcell says has no relation to Jet Set or Olympic business. Magistrate Ronald Boyce is expected hear arguments about the contested subpoenas. No hearing was scheduled as of Wednesday. Welch and Johnson's trial is expected to begin July 16. Jet Set's payments are central to the government's conspiracy case, which alleges Welch and Johnson deceived their own board about the bid campaign, which doled out $1 million in cash, scholarships, expensive gifts, medical care and other emoluments to IOC members and their relatives. The two leaders face 15 felony counts of conspiracy, fraud and racketeering. In his subpoenas served on Jet Set, Welch's lawyer demanded corporate, bank and financial records since 1986, including Olympic sponsorship pacts and records of cash, services or benefits given to any member of the IOC or national Olympic committees or their friends, relatives or associates. Blair spelled out that demand, providing a list of 159 IOC members or ex-members from 93 countries. Jet Set says it's not certain what documents, such as restaurant receipts, the defense really wants, but that it would be hard-pressed to round them up and probably doesn't have many of them. Welch, 55, was president of the Salt Lake bid committee. Johnson, 41, his deputy, went on to take a $200,000-a-year job as vice president for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. Welch was forced out in 1996 over allegations of domestic violence. Johnson was forced out in January 1999 as the Olympic bribery scandal unfolded. Both men lost post-games pensions, and Welch was stripped of a $10,000-a-month consulting contract.
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