Charges are expected to be filed in Salt Lake City on Tuesday in the latest case stemming from the scandal surrounding the tainted bid for the 2002 Winter Games, a spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department has confirmed.
The Washington, D.C.-based spokesman, John Russell, would not comment further on any details of the case Monday.The Deseret News learned Friday that former U.S. Olympic Committee official Alfredo LaMont would be charged this week with at least one felony and would likely enter a plea agreement.
LaMont's attorney, Lee D. Foreman, had little to say when reached at his Denver law office Monday morning. "I really don't think there is any comment I can make at this time," Foreman said.
He declined to confirm any details of his client's case, including when charges were expected to be filed. Asked whether he would be able to talk about the case soon, Foreman said, "It just depends on how the week goes."
If LaMont enters a plea agreement, he may waive a formal indictment by a grand jury. He is expected to cooperate with the federal investigation into allegations that Salt Lake tried to buy the votes of members of the International Olympic Committee.
LaMont faces charges in connection with what he did to help the Olympic bid as the USOC's international relations director. He was forced to resign from the Colorado Springs-based organization in January 1999.
In a statement issued Monday, new USOC chief executive officer Norm Blake said "with respect to the ongoing work of the U.S. Justice Department, it is inappropriate to comment on the media reports that began on Saturday in Salt Lake City."
Blake noted in the statement that the USOC completed both "an exhaustive internal investigation into its role in the Salt Lake bid process" and has changed the way American cities will bid for the Olympics in the future.
Those changes were adopted quickly, Blake said, "and we feel that our internal and external processes now include the oversight and controls that were missing when we were involved in the business of bids by American cities in the past."
The USOC's internal investigation found that LaMont earned more than $63,000 through a business relationship with former bid leader Tom Welch, according to a confidential report obtained by the Deseret News.
LaMont also requested that between $10,000 and $20,000 be wired to a Washington, D.C., bank from a USOC account to cover expenses incurred by unnamed IOC members attending a meeting there in 1988, according to a confidential internal USOC report.
A USOC financial official was quoted in the same report as saying he "later learned that the foreign guests had apparently been taken by Mr. LaMont on a shopping trip with their 'per diem.' "
LaMont would become the third person charged in connection with the scandal. Utah businessman David Simmons, the first, admitted illegally deducting as a business expense the salary of an IOC members's son on his former company's federal income taxes.
The son, Jung-hoon "John" Kim, was indicted in September 1999 on felony charges of lying to federal investigators and using a fraudulently obtained green card to enter the United States.