LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- Meticulous files apparently were kept on every member of the International Olympic Committee by the Salt Lake Bid Committee for the 2002 Winter Games.
The documents contained in those files helped create the case against 14 members of the IOC implicated this week in what is the biggest crisis ever faced by the Olympic movement.A report issued by the IOC on Sunday described how records kept by Salt Lake officials since 1989 identified IOC members and their relatives as receiving payments.
It took some doing for the IOC to get the information released, however.
The detailed records and correspondence files were forwarded to the IOC three weeks ago only after IOC Vice President Dick Pound showed up at the Salt Lake Organizing Committee offices with attorneys in tow.
Whether Salt Lake bidders tried to buy the votes of IOC members with cash, gifts and benefits, including college scholarships for their children, had been an issue since just before Thanksgiving.
That's when a 1996 letter detailing a $10,000-plus tuition payment to the daughter of an IOC member was leaked to the local media, a letter described in the IOC report as a fabrication.
The IOC quickly began asking its own questions and ordered SLOC officials to provide an explanation during a meeting of the IOC Executive Board held at IOC headquarters in Lausanne in early December.
At first, SLOC offered only limited facts and background, according to the report, releasing a summary that showed IOC members and their relatives had received payments.
"They defended the program and took the position that the payments were not connected with the bid and there was no quid pro quo pertaining to them, i.e., no promise of support for the bid," the report stated.
Former SLOC Senior Vice President of Games Dave Johnson even went so far as to tell IOC investigators that the IOC did "nothing to protect bidding cities" from pressures put on them by certain IOC members.
According to the report, it was clear Salt Lake officials "feared that the IOC might decide to remove the Games from Salt Lake City were the bid committee determined to have acted improperly."
Before leaving Lausanne, SLOC attorney Kelly Flint met privately with Pound, the head of the IOC's investigation, to discuss what additional information would be available.
Flint said certain files were in Johnson's possession, and former SLOC President Tom Welch had taken some material with him when he resigned in 1997. Flint said he was not certain what might have been contained in those files.
The files that he did have access to were locked in his office at SLOC headquarters, Flint told Pound. The report stated Flint was told "it was important the matter be given the highest priority."
Flint, who has since been placed on administrative leave by SLOC, was described as dealing with the matter "on an urgent basis" and reporting regularly to Pound on his progress.
Then the IOC Executive Board, which was meeting in Lausanne when the investigation was opened, publicly confirmed its confidence in SLOC and its current management.
That was done at the request of Pound and the other IOC members investigating Salt Lake City "in return for full disclosure and cooperation on SLOC's part," according to the report.
At that point, Johnson offered new details about lobbyists used during the bid. He said three or four were used, including Mahmoud El-Farnawani of Toronto, Mutaleb Ahmad of Kuwait and a Utahn, Frank Richards.
Richards is described in the report as "a local businessman with considerable South American experience, but (SLOC officials) are convinced he would not have used financial means."
Bennie Smith, a Utah businessman who was credited with securing the African vote, was not mentioned. Smith, a member of the SLOC Board of Trustees, has not spoken publicly about his bid role since the scandal began.
El-Farnawani, according to the report, received about $161,000, nearly three times as much as reported on bid committee tax returns. He started at $3,500 a month but was soon earning $5,000 a month.
He was retained "on the basis he was familiar with and might be able to influence members from the North African region to support the Salt Lake City bid," the report said.
SLOC officials told investigators no payments were made to El-Farnawani other than consulting fees and travel expenses. Johnson said no "performance bonus" was paid to El-Farnawani.
Johnson was also cited as saying neither Ahmad, the secretary-general of the Olympic Council of Asia, nor well-known Olympic lobbyist Goran Takatch were ever involved.
Takatch, who is based in Lausanne, was the subject of a Wall Street Journal article Monday as someone who had lobbied for 11 bid cities since 1976, including Nagano, Japan.
Nagano barely won the 1998 Winter Games over Salt Lake City. It was that 1991 vote by the IOC that prompted Salt Lake City to begin the aid program now being investigated.
A week after the meeting with investigators where the information on lobbyists was disclosed, Flint reported that he'd put together more details on payments to IOC members, including evidence of wire transfers.
Pound came to Salt Lake City for 1 1/2 days at the end of December, accompanied by attorneys from a U.S. law firm retained by the IOC, O'Melveny & Myers.
After meeting with the attorneys SLOC has hired as outside counsel in the case, Latham & Watkins, the detailed records and correspondence files were finally forwarded to the IOC.
Former Olympic boss Welch, who at one time indicated he would cooperate with the IOC inquiry, declined to come to either New York City or Lausanne to meet with the IOC investigators but did speak informally with Pound.
The report stated the ongoing U.S. Department of Justice investigation "has made several people who might otherwise be willing to help with the IOC investigation reluctant to do so."
Pound and his fellow investigators reported on their findings Sunday, recommending the expulsion of six IOC members and a warning to another. Three have already resigned and three more remain under investigation.
The IOC member whose daughter was mentioned in the letter that sparked the investigation died last year.
The various investigations into allegations of bribery surrounding Salt Lake City's successful bid for the 2002 Winter Games continues to cause ripples in bid cities throughout the world.
In developments:
-- The Associated Press is reporting that Rome's mayor is demanding a new vote for the 2004 Olympics, contending the choice of Athens, Greece, is tainted.
In September 1997, Athens beat Rome 66-41 in the final round of voting for the 2004 Summer Games.
-- Canadian swimmer Mark Tewksbury is so upset by the Olympic bribery scandal that he left his gold medal behind on a table after speaking at a news conference Monday, The Associated Press reported.
"This is an Olympic gold medal, if anyone wants it," said Tewksbury, 100-meter backstroke winner in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
Tewksbury also called for the resignation of IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch.
-- The International Olympic Committee delegate from Sudan facing expulsion in the Salt Lake bribery scandal admitted Tuesday that he received $24,000 but insisted it was a loan.
Gen. Zein el-Abdin Ahmed Abdel-Gadir told The Associated Press that he had accepted the money as a loan to help cover the cost of his son's studies in the United States.
-- Acknowledging "excesses" in his city's bid for the 1998 Winter Olympics, Nagano's mayor admitted Monday that IOC officials received free trips to the ancient capital of Kyoto, The Associated Press reported.
"At that time, we were the ones who were asking to be chosen. It's rather difficult to turn down the requests from IOC members who wanted to tour Kyoto," Mayor Tasuku Tsukada said.
Meanwhile, a Japanese citizens' group in Nagano -- the Anti-Olympics People's Network -- is calling for the dismantling of the International Olympic Committee, which it says has been tainted by corruption.
-- A Russian official now under investigation in the Olympic scandal told a member of the Quebec team seeking the 2002 Winter Games that he wanted financing for an athletic center north of Moscow, The Associated Press reported.
Henri Dorion, then working for the unsuccessful Quebec bid, told the Globe and Mail on Monday that Vitaly Smirnov, an influential member of the International Olympic Committee, raised the issue of financing a sports recreation center in 1993 but got nothing from Quebec.
-- The Associated Press reported that China believes the IOC will clean up the bribery scandal and wants Sydney and Salt Lake City to go ahead with hosting the Games, the Chinese Olympic Committee said in a statement late Monday.
Sydney beat Beijing by a two-vote margin to host the 2000 Summer Olympics.
Deseret News staff writer Jerry Spangler contributed to this report.