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Bid leaders reach for Swiss defense
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- For months -- and despite a judge's refusal to consider it -- defense lawyers in the Olympic bribery case have tried to argue that nothing prevents U.S. bid cities from paying IOC members for their votes. The lawyers filed notice Thursday that they plan to pursue this novel theory at the trial of Salt Lake's bid leaders. The defense has even hired an expert, Swiss legal authority Wolfgang Wigand, to testify about the laws governing the Swiss-based IOC. If nothing else, Thursday's notice serves warning of an appeal of any conviction of Salt Lake bid chief Tom Welch or his deputy, Dave Johnson, who are accused of paying $1 million in disguised bribes to IOC members. Under Swiss law, their lawyers say, IOC members owe no financial obligation to their organization, so they could take bribes without violating Utah's anti-bribery law, which is at the center of the Justice Department's conspiracy case. That law applies to employees, agents and fiduciaries of companies or organizations, and defense lawyers contend IOC members fit none of those definitions. It's central to their argument that the excesses of Salt Lake's bid campaign harmed no one. IOC vice president Richard Pound told The Associated Press on Friday that IOC delegates owe no fiduciary obligation to their organization or even any obligation to their home countries. But U.S. Magistrate Ronald Boyce, an authority on international law at the University of Utah, ruled as recently as a week that Swiss law has no legal or factual relevance to the Olympic case. Boyce was more blunt while interrupting defense lawyers at a Feb. 8 hearing to declare, "Swiss law isn't going to have anything to do with this case." He complimented their "gallant effort" to find a Swiss legal authority who could file a lengthy memorandum. But he stood adamant against mixing Swiss law and American justice. The defense strategy is the work of Michael Goldsmith, once a New York organized-crime prosecutor and now a Brigham Young University law professor. Goldsmith, who could not be reached Friday, joined the defense team to argue that the Justice Department stretched conspiracy and fraud statutes beyond recognition to fit the once-loose world of Olympic lobbying. Justice Department trial attorneys Richard Wiedis and John Scott filed an answer to the defense on Friday, noting Boyce's repeated refusals to consider Swiss law. They said the defense, against all odds, would try to call Wigand to the stand. They asked Boyce to rule out Swiss law once and for all. "The only possible purpose of raising the issue before a jury would be, as the defendants plainly hope, to confuse the jury," the prosecutors wrote. Welch and Johnson were indicted on 15 felony counts of conspiracy, fraud and racketeering. The conspiracy count accuses the bid leaders of scheming to break Utah's bribery law.
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