A key government witness in the case against Tom Welch and Dave Johnson gave jurors some insight Thursday into just how eager the Salt Lake bid leaders were to please members of the International Olympic Committee.

Welch and Johnson are on trial in federal court on felony fraud, conspiracy and racketeering charges in connection with the more than $1 million in cash and gifts given to IOC members before their 1995 decision to give Salt Lake City the 2002 Winter Games.

"I recall a Rolex watch," the witness, former bid finance director Rod Hamson, said after being asked by prosecutor Richard Wiedis if Welch had ever talked about gifts given to Jean-Claude Ganga, the now disgraced IOC member from the Congo Republic.

"They were having dinner one evening, and Mr. Ganga made a comment about Mr. Welch's watch," Hamson testified. "And before the end of the dinner, Mr. Welch had given him the watch off his wrist."

Welch later submitted a bill to the bid committee from the Time Shop in Salt Lake City for $5,469, presumably the cost of replacing the luxury watch. Hamson said the bill was recorded as an "IOC expense."

The watch wasn't the only gift to Ganga, then the leader of Africa's national Olympic Committees. In its opening statement, the government described Ganga as receiving "a jackpot of $322,000" from the Salt Lake bid.

Thursday, more details of the largess extended to Ganga and other IOC members emerged during Hamson's second day on the stand. He is expected to continue to be questioned by the government today.

There also may be time today for the defense to start its cross-examination of Hamson. Welch told reporters he didn't think the jury was hearing anything that hadn't already been made public since the scandal surfaced in late 1998.

"It's just out of context. Wait until everything gets put in context," Welch said. "What's very interesting is that everything we're looking at is pretty well described on the books and in the records" of the committee.

He declined to comment on the Rolex story, although when a reporter jokingly admired the watch he was wearing Thursday and suggested he give it away, Welch said, "I wish I could afford a Rolex."

Johnson's attorney, Max Wheeler, told reporters asking whether Thursday's testimony damaged the defense to "wait until the cross-examination and you decide." Wheeler said the defense's questioning of Hamson would be lengthy.

The prosecution's presentation of so many gifts given could end up hurting their case by making jurors feel sorry for Welch and Johnson, because they see the pair as having been taken advantage of by IOC members, University of Utah law professor Erik Luna said.

That could be the jury's conclusion, Luna said, "if it looks like the defendants were really the ones who were being bilked, that they were being forced into a situation where they had no choice but to provide these favors and these gifts."

Luna said the story about the watch told by Hamson "is a perfect example of that. The jury may actually have a tad bit of sympathy for those two. They're being hustled by these IOC members . . . and they're being prosecuted by the federal government."

The requests sometimes came through consultants hired by the bid, including Muttaleb Ahmed, paid to help woo votes. Ahmed sent a handwritten fax to Johnson in 1994 stating that a "Zema Gadir" expects "$1,000 only a month."

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