No 'criminal conduct'
SLOC investigator says conduct viewed as unethical
Posted: Wednesday February 17, 1999 03:03 PM
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A former federal prosecutor working on the
Salt Lake Organizing Committee's investigation into the Olympics
bribery scandal said she found no indication of criminal conduct.
While SLOC, the U.S. Olympic Committee and the International
Olympic Committee all have been conducting separate investigations
of ethical misconduct, the U.S. Justice Department and Utah
Attorney General's Office have been looking for criminal
violations.
Beth Wilkinson, a leading attorney on the Justice Department
team that prosecuted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, said she
found evidence of ethical lapses, but no breaches of criminal law
on the part of the bid committee, the predecessor to SLOC.
"I did consider a lot of the criminal theories and I don't see
criminal conduct," Wilkinson said Tuesday. "Some of their
activities could be seen as unethical, but that's a long way from
being criminal."
The independent SLOC ethics panel last week revealed that
executives of the Salt Lake bid committee gave more than $1 million
worth of cash payments, free vacations, living stipends, shopping
sprees and free medical care to IOC members and their families.
The lavish spending occurred before the 1995 IOC vote in
Budapest giving Salt Lake City the 2002 Winter Games.
Two former executives of the bid committee and later the SLOC
were blamed by the ethics panel for the excesses. President Tom
Welch resigned in mid-1997 amid a spousal abuse charge and on Jan.
8 was stripped of his $500,000 pension and $10,000-per-month
consulting contract. Senior Vice President Dave Johnson resigned
under pressure on Jan. 8.
Wilkinson, who left the Justice Department for a private law
firm in Washington last September, and her partner, Barry Sanders
of Los Angeles, were retained by the SLOC in December to conduct
their own investigation.
Sanders and Wilkinson said their no-crime conclusion pertains
only to their client, the committee.
Tom Schaffer, the Salt Lake attorney representing Welch, said
it's clear the SLOC attorneys do not believe Welch committed
crimes.
"I discussed lots of different scenarios with them on several
occasions and the three of us really couldn't come up anything that
fit," Schaffer said. "There may be other things that Justice is
looking at that I'm not aware of."
The Justice Department, which has five prosecutors working the
case, has been guiding the investigation through the FBI office in
Salt Lake City.
One former Justice Department official speaking on condition of
anonymity said Tuesday the high priority given the case may make
charges more likely.
"There's a real incentive when you have that many people
devoted to not just walk away and say, 'No crime,'" the source
said.
According to sources familiar with the investigation,
prosecutors are looking at possible mail or wire fraud; false
statements or perjury; tax fraud; and violations of customs laws
that require declaration of sums of $10,000 or more in cash leaving
the country.
The ethics panel last week said one former bid employee reported
$30,000 was taken from committee bank accounts to pay for
legitimate expenses in Budapest in 1995. The panel, which had no
power to subpoena bank records, could not determine whether that
amount was taken out of the United States in cash or traveler
checks.
In other developments Tuesday:
- Mitt Romney, the new chief executive officer for SLOC, received
standing ovations when he appeared before the Utah House and
Senate.
Romney, the Massachusetts venture capitalist hired Thursday to
lead the scandal-tainted Olympic organization for the next three
years, told lawmakers he intends to return the games to the
athletes and to bring the Olympics in on budget.
He promised an aggressive fundraising drive.
"I want money," said the Boston businessman, who plans to
"count on Utah businesses to contribute to the games -- big time."
Sen. Parley Hellewell, R-Orem, who runs a plumbing service
business, handed Romney a crisp $100 bill.
- Salt Lake bidders paid for ski trips for three USOC members in
the late 1980s, Howard Peterson, former executive director of the
U.S. Skiing Association, told USOC's investigating panel. He said
he identified one of the members and gave information on the other
two to the USOC investigators.
- The head of the Dominican Republic's Olympic Committee, Roque
Napoleon Munoz, denied a newspaper report that he received inflated
travel expenses from Sweden. He said he was reimbursed for a trip
he took to Stockholm with his wife to evaluate that city's bid for
the 2004 Olympics, but said the trip did not cost more than $5,000.
Swedish documents cited by Stockholm's Dagens Nyheter newspaper
indicate more than $18,000 was spent.
- Christian Rodriguez, secretary general of Chile's Olympic
committee, submitted his resignation, but denied accusations he
served as a go-between in gaining favors for expelled Chilean IOC
member Sergio Santander.
According to SLOC's ethics report, Rodriguez accompanied
Santander on a site visit to Utah in 1995 and -- at Santander's
request -- asked Welch for contributions to Santander's political
campaign. Rodriguez was managing the campaign. The ethics report
said Welch contributed $20,050.
- Primo Nebiolo, president of world track and field, offered
formal support Tuesday for embattled IOC president Juan Antonio
Samaranch, who has faced numerous calls to resign from outside the
IOC. He said the Council of the Association of Summer Olympic
International Federations, over which he presides, "is convinced
that Samaranch is exceptionally qualified to navigate the IOC
through these troubled waters.
"At a time like this when strength, wisdom and determination
are absolutely necessary to reinforce faith in the Olympic
Movement, his experience and leadership cannot be questioned," he
said.
Samaranch has faced numerous calls to resign from outside the
IOC.
- Less than a quarter of Olympic bidders responded to the IOC's
request for information on rule-breaking behavior by its members,
the committee said. It said replies were received from 11 cities,
while two other national Olympic committees were given more time to
file their reports. Details of the replies were not disclosed and
the groups granted extensions were not identified.
- With sponsors skittish over the bribery scandal, organizers of
the Sydney Games were urged by an IOC executive Tuesday to plow a
$66 million profit-sharing deal back into the budget. "You would
solve the financing issue in a stroke of a pen," IOC marketing
director Michael Payne said.
With Sydney about $130 million short of its target for
sponsorship revenues, Payne said the controversial profit deal
should be reviewed. He said the IOC warned the Australians three
years ago against projecting a surplus for the games. Sydney
organizers have predicted a $17.7 million surplus.
Under terms of the IOC's contract with Olympic cities, 90
percent of any surplus goes to the host country and 10 percent to
the IOC. Of the 90 percent set aside for the host country, 10
percent goes to the national Olympic committee.
In Sydney, Olympics Minister Michael Knight suggested for the
first time that the Olympics could get by without the extra
sponsorship revenue. "You can run a pretty fantastic Olympic Games
on A$2.4 billion," he said.
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