An unexpected discovery in a desk drawer at Salt Lake Organizing Committee headquarters may also bring a windfall to defense attorneys in the Olympic bid scandal.
SLOC President Mitt Romney announced Thursday that organizers will auction the 192 gold nuggets made for the Salt Lake Bid Committee ? worth an estimated $250 apiece ? on the Internet.
The $48,000 the auction could bring is good news for SLOC financial planners, but Olympic officials are not the only ones lauding the find.
Attorneys for former bid leaders Tom Welch and Dave Johnson believe the items can help prove their clients' innocence.
"It's evidence that Tom Welch and Dave Johnson weren't the only ones devising and giving gifts, which is, of course, the gist of the government's case: that this was all done in secret by the two of them," Johnson's attorney, Max Wheeler, said Friday.
After reading about the discovery in Thursday's Deseret News, Welch's attorney, Blair Brown, faxed a brief, three-sentence request to SLOC attorneys asking the committee to retain possession of the items.
"We need to look into the circumstances surrounding the jewelry," Brown said Friday. "It is certainly, I think, likely that further investigation will reveal that there were persons other than Tom Welch and Dave Johnson who were aware of and involved in gift-giving to IOC members."
"We haven't received the letter from the defense requesting we hold onto the items. At this point, we weren't planning on putting them on eBay today," SLOC spokeswoman Caroline Shaw said.
Welch and Johnson are accused of giving more than $1 million in cash, scholarships and gifts to International Olympic Committee members during Salt Lake City's bid for the 2002 Winter Games.
Brown also said he is "very interested" in learning the circumstances leading to SLOC's discovery of the jewelry.
"I'm not suggesting anything yet, but it's very mysterious that they would show up at this point in time, since it's my understanding that they were obtained more than 10 years ago," he said.
Wheeler said he has not yet decided whether to join Welch's attorneys in asking SLOC to halt sale of the items.
"We think that the nuggets certainly are evidence relevant to the pending criminal case, but whether we need the actual nuggets themselves, that's the question in my mind," he said. Documentation of the trinkets' existence, including the value of the items, may be all the evidence necessary, Wheeler said.
Brown has not heard from SLOC regarding his request and said he will decide further action based on its response.
Welch and Johnson were originally charged with 15 criminal counts, but U.S. District Judge David Sam in July dismissed four racketeering charges and vacated a July 30 trial date. No new date has been set, and Sam is deliberating a defense motion to dismiss the remaining 11 charges of mail and wire fraud and conspiracy.
Justice Department attorney Richard Wiedis on Friday said he will investigate discovery of the gold nuggets and their relevance to the case.
"There's no way in telling right now what the significance is," Wiedis said.
But, he warned, the mere existence of the trinkets is not proof that others were involved in Welch's and Johnson's allegedly criminal conduct.
"I would suspect that these trinkets were not given out," Wiedis said, "because someone made a decision that they may have violated IOC rules."
Contributing: Lisa Riley Roche
E-MAIL: awelling@desnews.com