Salt Lake off one hook
IOC rules out sanctions; grand jury to hear evidence
Posted: Thursday January 14, 1999 11:22 AM
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Mayor Tasuku Tsukada (left), who was Nagano's bid committee executive chairman, admitted that Nagano paid $353,107 to host the '98 Games AP |
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The IOC has ruled out further punishment
of the battered Salt Lake Olympics effort. Federal investigators
probing bribery allegations surrounding the city's successful bid
for the 2002 Winter Games might not be so charitable.
A federal grand jury in Salt Lake City will begin hearing
evidence of tax fraud and bribery as early as next week, The Salt
Lake Tribune said Thursday.
Prosecutors will deliver subpoenas to key players in the Olympic
scandal. Many of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee records already
reviewed by the International Olympic Committee, the U.S. Olympic
Committee and by SLOC's own ethics panel have made their way to the
FBI's Salt Lake City headquarters, were Department of Justice
attorney Richard Wiedis is heading the government's bribery probe.
"It's the horse before the cart kind of thing," one federal
official told The Salt Lake Tribune. "This is the natural next
step."
The speed of the subpoenas might suggest the scandal presents
federal investigators with a troublesome time limit. Much of
federal law is ruled by a five-year statute of limitation. Any
violation of the fraud and bribery laws prior to 1993 could fall
outside the Justice probe unless it was shown to be part of an
ongoing conspiracy to defraud.
Meanwhile, Jacques Rogge, a member of the IOC panel looking into
allegations, announced, "The commission will not recommend any
action against Salt Lake City. There is no action to be taken."
Rogge said he understood that "around a dozen" IOC members had
been implicated in the investigation of Salt Lake, but rejected
calls for IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch's resignation as
"ridiculous."
USA Today, citing unidentified source with knowledge of the
inquiry, reported Thursday that the IOC sent letters to 13 of its
members demanding explanations of activities in the Salt Lake City
bid.
Rogge also said the IOC was prepared to investigate charges of
corruption in other campaigns, including claims that Sydney
officials were approached for bribes during their successful bid
for the 2000 Summer Games.
Rogge, a Belgian member of the IOC's executive board, said the
six-man investigative panel had considered sanctions against Salt
Lake officials connected with the 2002 bid.
But he said such action was ruled out when the organizing
committee's two top officials, president Frank Joklik and vice
president Dave Johnson, resigned last week amid four investigations
of cash payments, lavish gifts and scholarships from Salt Lake
bidders to IOC members.
"The people who were in the bid are no more," Rogge said in a
telephone interview. "They took the actions they thought were
needed."
In other developments Wednesday:
- Utah officials confirmed that Olympic boosters used state
airplanes to ferry IOC members and others to scenic spots.
- Salt Lake's KTVX-TV resurrected the long-rumored allegation
that the Salt Lake bid committee arranged female escorts for IOC
members.
The station quoted unidentified sources it said were close to
SLOC and the escort industry as saying IOC members asked SLOC
staffers both in Salt Lake City and at IOC meetings overseas to
arrange escorts. One source said SLOC leaders were flabbergasted at
the much higher cost overseas. The station said a downtown hotel
provided a free room for IOC members and escorts.
State spokesmen have said they've never been able to confirm the
reports that escorts were provided.
- IOC member Anita DeFrantz says one way to avoid corruption in
the site selection process is to permanently end site visits.
"If you are not visiting, then you are not put in the position
of saying, 'Thank you, but I don't want to accept that gift,'"
DeFrantz told The Denver Post in an article published today.
Competition among cities to host the Olympics then would be
"reduced to what it ought to be," said DeFrantz, one of two U.S.
members of the IOC. "Not a competition of who has the best gifts
under $150, but a competition of who has the best opportunities
for athletes to have safe and fair competition."
Travel simply isn't necessary in judging which city would do the
best job playing host to the Games, DeFrantz said from her office
in Los Angeles.
Michael Payne, the IOC's marketing chief, said IOC leaders will
consider this and other reforms this month. Meanwhile, Samaranch
has issued a temporary ban on site visits in connection with the
2006 Olympics.
Regarding the use of state airplanes, Tom Warne, executive
director of the Utah Department of Transportation, said the bid
committee reimbursed the state $9,561 for eight flights in
1994-95.
The bid committee used state planes to shuttle IOC delegates,
sports federation officials and games organizers to Page, Arizona,
to Moab, Utah, and to Jackson, Wyoming.
Flight records indicate all eight flights were day trips of no
longer than three hours each. They began in June 1994 and ended in
May 1995, a month before the IOC picked Salt Lake City to host the
games.
The rate paid by the bid committee was $375 per hour,
including a pilot, for the King Air B200 twin-engine plane, Warne
said.
A commercial charter service would have cost the bid committee
hundreds of dollars more. Barken International charges $900 an
hour for use of its King Air B200, including the pilot. The rates
have not risen much, if at all, in recent years, said Richard
Blair, a Barken dispatcher.
Among the IOC members listed in the UDOT flight records are
Anton Geesink of the Netherlands, Alexandru Siperio of Romania,
Walther Troeger of Germany and Jim Easton of the United States.
Family members were along on the trips.
The records also indicate that Vladimir Cernusak of Slovakia and
David Sibandze of Swaziland, or family members of each, might have
been on the trips. It's not clear because the first names are
spelled differently on the flight records.
Geesink told The Associated Press on Thursday that he received a
letter from the IOC, but would only open it in the presence of the
Dutch Olympic Committee chairman.
Meanwhile, the South African Press Association reported Thursday
that Sibandze, the president of Swaziland's Olympic Committee, is
among the IOC members being investigated. He declined to comment.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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