Bribery scandal claims first IOC member
Haeggman resigns; IOC could implicate 15 more members
Posted: Wednesday January 20, 1999 10:44 AM
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Haeggman resigned from her IOC position on Tuesday AP |
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Independent investigations of the widespread Olympic bribery scandal are taking a toll.
An IOC member -- one of 13 implicated by IOC investigators -- resigned Tuesday. Pirjo Haeggman of Finland denied any wrongdoing, but said she could no longer function as an IOC member.
In a statement from Helsinki, Haeggman said she had been "rash and perhaps naive in my trust in other people." Haeggman's ex-husband, Bjarne, reportedly worked briefly for the Salt Lake City bid committee and for 20 months in an Ontario government job initiated by the Toronto committee bidding for the 1996 Summer Games.
Bjarne Haeggman's job with Ontario's Natural Resources Ministry was arranged with the help of the Toronto committee that bid for the 1996 Summer Games. The committee also paid the Haeggmans' $650-a-month rent in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.
Paul Henderson, who was head of the Toronto bid committee, said the rent money was supposed to be repaid by the Haeggmans, but he was unsure whether it was. He denied it was an attempt to win Pirjo Haeggman's vote.
In the wake of Pirjo Haeggman's resignation, the Wall Street Journal said Wednesday that a draft report on the scandal, written by IOC Vice President Richard Pound, implicates as many as 16 IOC members.
The report said the members might face expulsion for accepting more than $780,000 in payments and gifts from Salt Lake City Olympic officials during and after the successful effort to play host to the 2002 Winter Games.
Pound also was quoted in today's Kitchener-Waterloo (Ontario) Record as saying he himself was once turned down a $1 million bribe offer in connection with a television deal. He cited the declined offer as evidence of the high standards of some IOC officials.
Pirjo Haeggman was among nine IOC members accused of serious violations who faced possible expulsion, an official close to the investigation told The Associated Press. Four other members have been cited for minor violations and face warnings or no sanctions.
While Haeggman was the first IOC member to resign since the scandal broke, three other Olympic officials also have quit. They are Salt Lake Organizing Committee President Frank Joklik and Senior Vice President Dave Johnson, and Alfredo La Mont, the U.S. Olympic Committee's senior director of international relations.
Tom Welch, who headed the Salt Lake bid committee, resigned in 1997 after being accused of spousal abuse.
Welch's former secretary, Stephanie Pate, was to talk to federal investigators in Salt Lake City Wednesday.
Her attorney, David Watkiss, said she was subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury, but asked instead to meet with investigators privately.
Pate was not a "player," in the actions that have given rise to allegations of bribery, Watkiss said. "We just did what we were instructed to do," Watkiss said, using the plural form lawyers sometimes use for their clients.
Watkiss said he assumes investigators want to ask Pate about the reports of lavish gifts, cash, scholarships and free medical care given to IOC members by Salt Lake bid boosters.
"We're going to meet with the government and then the government can decide whether it wishes to present Ms. Pate before a grand jury," Watkiss said Tuesday. "The grand jury appearance can be much shorter once the government understands what she knows and what she doesn't know."
The lawyer said he advised Pate against talking to other investigators looking into the Olympic mess until after she talks with the Department of Justice.
"Our bottom line is we're trying to cooperate with the Department of Justice investigation to the best of our ability," Watkiss said.
Other lawyers representing key players in Salt Lake's bid have either not returned calls or made no comments when contacted by The Associated Press on Tuesday.
A Justice Department official confirmed that more than one subpoena for grand jury testimony has been issued. The Salt Lake Tribune, without citing a source, said as many as a dozen people have been subpoenaed.
In addition to the investigations by the federal government and the IOC, a probe is being made by SLOC's ethics committee, which is due Feb. 11 but could be finished sooner. USOC's investigation should be finished in February.
FBI spokesman George Dougherty said Tuesday the investigation likely will take months.
"These types of investigations take a long time ... but we understand the urgency here to get this matter resolved quickly and so we're going to expedite our investigation," Dougherty said. "Obviously, we don't want it to drag out for a year or so."
He declined to give specifics about the status of the investigation or whether the grand jury would hear evidence on Wednesday.
In other developments:
A member of an Olympic promotional group said at least two IOC members accepted offers of prostitutes from the Amsterdam committee that bid for the 1992 Summer Games. Prostitution is licensed in parts of Amsterdam.
"I was there and saw it, IOC members being offered women and two accepting," said Prince Frederic von Saxe-Lauenberg, a member of the Pierre de Coubertin International Committee. He said the two were African members, but declined to name them.
Von Saxe-Lauenberg said IOC members also were given video cassette recorders and their wives were offered diamond broaches by the Amsterdam committee. Roel Walraven, a member of Amsterdam's bid committee, admitted that IOC members had been given VCRs, but said he knew nothing "about visits to brothels or diamonds in hotel rooms."
Melbourne's bid committee for the 1996 Olympics arranged for an IOC delegate's daughter to play with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, a bid member said today.
Shane Maloney, who was the committee's cultural events organizer, also said he collected a $9,600 Aboriginal painting for a European museum after a suggestion from IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch.
Maloney told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio that the musician was the daughter of a South Korean delegate the committee wanted to impress.
Melbourne lost the games to Atlanta.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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