Police say Ryan Lochte, swimmers lied about alleged robbery
RIO DE JANEIRO — Rio police said on Thursday that four U.S. Olympic swimmers who claimed they were robbed at gunpoint fabricated their story to cover up for a drunken night that ended with them vandalizing a gas station bathroom.
“It seems that they lied,” said Fernando Veloso, chief of Rio’s civil police. “No robbery was committed against these athletes. They were not victims of the crimes they claimed.”
Veloso’s statements at a jam-packed afternoon news conference followed a chaotic and confusing week for the U.S. team and cast a pall over the final days of the 2016 Summer Olympics. What started as a case of U.S. athletes falling victim to Rio’s notorious crime could end up leaving a black eye instead on the four American medalists.
Early Sunday morning, Ryan Lochte, Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger and Jimmy Feigen were riding home from a party at France House — a restaurant/bar set up for the Olympics — when they said they were pulled over by men pretending to be police officers and were robbed. Lochte was the most explicit, saying one of the men put a gun to his forehead before taking their money.
Veloso gave a far different account. He said the four swimmers stopped at a gas station and one of them broke down the bathroom door and police found damage to a soap dispenser and a mirror.
The athletes were confronted by security officers, and they offered the gas station employees $20 and 100 Brazilian reais (about $33 U.S.). Veloso said the swimmers continued being belligerent, prompting a security officer to show his gun. But he said no excessive force was used and there was no way the swimmers could have interpreted the situation as a robbery.
VIDEO: Security footage of U.S. swimmers
Veloso also said two women were with the swimmers earlier in the night.
“We started to understand the real dynamic of what happened,” he said. “This gives them some kind of motive” for the coverup.
By Wednesday, after hearing from witnesses and reviewing video surveillance footage of the evening, Brazilian Judge Keyla Blank ordered the swimmers not to leave the country and ordered their passports seized so they could be further questioned by investigators. In her decision, she questioned the gap of time between when the athletes said they left France House and when video shows them arriving back at the athlete village. She also said the swimmers did not appear to be shaken by the alleged crime.
By the time of the order, Lochte was already back home in the U.S.
Conger and Bentz tried to board a plane home on Wednesday night but were stopped by Brazilian officials. They spent the night in a Rio hotel and were taken for several hours of questioning Thursday at a Rio police station accompanied by an official from the U.S. consulate and swarmed by dozens of Brazilian and international reporters.
Feigen remained holed up at a Rio hotel. “I’m just trying to give Brazil what they need or what they want and get out of here,” Feigen told USA Today Sports during a telephone interview late Wednesday.
And back in the U.S., Lochte was Tweeting about how his blue-green hair was returning to its normal color. His attorney said Lochte stood by his account of the events, and the swimmer repeated the narrative to NBC’s Matt Lauer in an interview.
It remained unclear on Thursday night whether the four would face criminal charges of filing a false police report or committing property damage. Veloso said they still needed to interview Feigen, and that they were trying to arrange an interview with Lochte through U.S. law enforcement officials.
For now, Veloso said he’s looking for an apology after their story made worldwide headlines and threw a black cloud over Rio.
“The apology should be to the carioca people who saw their image stained by a fantasy story” Veloso said, using the term to describe citizens of Rio.
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