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FORMER OFFICIALS OF SALT LAKE CITY OLYMPIC ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

SALT LAKE CITY - A federal grand jury today indicted the former president and the former vice-president of the Salt Lake City Olympic Bid Committee (SLBC) and the Salt Lake City Olympic Organizing Committee (SLOC) for their roles in Salt Lake City's bid to host the 2002 Winter Olympics, the Justice Department announced.

The 15-count indictment, returned today in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, Utah, charges Thomas K. Welch, age 55, who resigned as president of SLOC in 1997, and David R. Johnson, age 41, who resigned as vice-president of SLOC in early 1999, with one count of conspiracy, five counts of mail fraud, five counts of wire fraud and four counts of interstate travel in aid of racketeering.

According to the indictment, the two secretly paid an official of the United States Olympic Committee to assist SLBC in winning the designation as the USOC'S candidate city, personally diverted $130,000 in SLBC income; offered and paid $1 million to influence the votes of more than a dozen International Olympic Committee members; prepared and executed a series of bogus contracts and falsified SLBC/SLOC's books, records and other publicly available documents so as to conceal their activities.

Today's indictment is the fourth prosecution related to the allegations of improprieties in connection with the Salt Lake City Olympic bid. In two of the cases, David Simmons, a Salt Lake City businessman, and Alfredo Lamont, a former USOC official, pled guilty to tax offenses. In a third case, Jung Hoon Kim the son of an IOC member from Korea is charged with false statements to the FBI and using a green card obtained by fraud. Kim is a fugitive.

The conspiracy charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, or both. The racketeering charges each carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine or both. The mail and wire fraud charges each carry a maximum sentence of five years, a $250,000 fine, or both.

The investigation leading to this prosecution was conducted by prosecutors from the Fraud and Public Integrity Sections of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, and by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Customs Service.

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