Report hurts Welch, Johnson defense

Government prosecutors said in filings Tuesday that statements Tom Welch made to an ethics panel investigating the Salt Lake Olympic bid scandal help prove he tried to conceal the reason payments were made to IOC members.

The government is attempting to keep the findings of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee's ethics panel and other key evidence from being excluded from the trial of bid leaders Welch and Dave Johnson, set to start Oct. 28.

Welch and Johnson are charged with fraud, conspiracy and racketeering in connection with the more than $1 million in cash and gifts handed out during Salt Lake City's successful bid for the 2002 Winter Games.

The defense told the court in filings last week that the report of the SLOC ethics panel, which held Welch and Johnson responsible for the bid scandal, should be thrown out because it is "inadmissible hearsay and unduly prejudicial."

The ethics report is considered especially troublesome for the defense because Welch and Johnson cooperated with the investigation, telling the ethics panel in detail about payments made to IOC members.

The government stated in its filings Tuesday that Welch told the ethics panel, for example, about a total of $50,000 in payments made in 1995 to Jean-Claude Ganga, then an IOC member from the Congo. Ganga was one of 10 IOC members ousted in the scandal.

The filing stated that according to the ethics report, the money was to satisfy "his earlier promise of a $50,000 contribution from the Bid Committee to support amateur athletics in the Congo."

And even though Welch "specifically denied any knowledge that the checks were deposited to Mr. Ganga's personal account" to the ethics panel, the government wants to use his statements to help prove their case. "Such statements," the government said in its filings, "demonstrate Welch's continuing attempt to conceal the underlying purpose, and the extent, of his payments to IOC members, even after the SLOC became aware of the potential scandal."

David Jordan, the former U.S. Attorney for Utah who helped lead the ethics panel, is expected to be called as a witness by the government.

The government also stated that the ethics panel's findings "do not present emotionally charged allegations likely to sway the jury" and said they are similar to those contained in the indictment.