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Two former bid leaders indicted in Salt Lake City Olympics investigation

From staff and wire reports

WASHINGTON -- A federal grand jury Thursday indicted the former president and former vice president of the Salt Lake City Olympic Bid Committee and Salt Lake City Olympic Organizing Committee for their roles in Salt Lake City's bid to host the 2002 Winter Olympics, the Justice Department announced.

The 15-count indictment returned in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, Utah, charges Tom Welsh, 55, who resigned as president of the Organizing Committee in 1997, and David Johnson, 41, who resigned as vice president of the committee in 1999.

The charges are conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and interstate travel in aid of racketeering.

The indictment said the two secretly paid an official of the U.S. Olympic Committee to assist the Salt Lake City bid committee in winning designation as the USOC's candidate city.

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It said the two men offered and paid $1 million to influence the votes of more than a dozen International Olympic Committee members.

The Justice Department began its investigation in December 1998 after allegations that organizers of the Salt Lake City Olympics gave cash, scholarships, medical care and other gifts to international committee members.

Welch and Johnson soon became the focus of the investigation after news of the scandal broke. They have denied any wrongdoing.

In its news release on the indictment, the Justice Department said Welch and Johnson "personally diverted $130,000" in bid committee income and "prepared and executed a series of bogus contracts and falsified SLBC/SLOC (Salt Lake City Olympic Bid Committee/Salt Lake Organizing Committee) books, records and other publicly available documents so as to conceal their activities."

A Salt Lake City ethics panel found that the bid lavished more than $1.2 million in cash, gifts, travel and other inducements on members of the International Olympic Committee and their relatives. The panel largely blamed Welch and Johnson.

Bid trustees, including Gov. Mike Leavitt, have insisted they were kept in the dark by Welch and Johnson.

Mitt Romney, president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, had said he hoped Welch and Johnson could reach a settlement that would end the scandal. Romney was brought in to clean up the organization after the scandal broke in December 1998.

In the wake of the scandal, 10 IOC members resigned or were removed from the 105-year-old organization, and the organizing committee's upper management was replaced.

Communications executive David Simmons pleaded guilty to tax fraud and admitted conspiring with bid leaders to provide a phony job for John Kim, son of Korean IOC member Kim Un-yong. The younger Kim was indicted for allegedly entering the country on an illegally obtained visa and lying to the FBI.

Former USOC international relations director Alfredo Lamont of Colorado Springs, Colorado, pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns and admitted to conspiring with two unidentified bid officials in the process.

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The International Olympic Committee
United States Olympic Committee
Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic Winter Games of 2002

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