Not Guilty Pleas In Olympic Bribery Case

The two former Utah Olympic officials have pleaded not guitly to federal charges alleging they paid $1 million in cash and gifts to help bring the 2002 Winter Games to Salt Lake City.

It's the trial Salt Lake dreads: Two former Olympic pitchmen in a vote-buying scandal likely to further embarrass the International Olympic Committee.

Tom Welch, 55, former president of the Salt Lake City Olympic bid committee, and Dave Johnson, 41, the ex-vice president, each face 15 felony conspiracy and fraud charges. They are the highest-ranking officials charged in the biggest scandal in Olympic history.

Both men have rejected plea bargains and defiantly maintained their innocence. Their lawyers also said they are eager to rebut charges they concealed their dealings from Utah political and business figures.

Welch brushed aside a personal appeal by Mitt Romney, the new head of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, to accept a plea deal.

The trial could take a full year to begin -- just as Salt Lake is gearing up for the 2002 Games, defense lawyers and legal observers say. But the federal courthouse is expected to shut down any trials or hearings during the games.

Both men were accused of disguising illicit payments to influence 15 delegates of the IOC. The money funded U.S. college educations for some of the IOC delegates' children. Other funds paid for their first-class travel or covered extravagant gifts, in one case a pedigree golden retriever.

One defense strategy is to get now-banished IOC members to testify that the kind of lavish treatment doled out by Welch and Johnson was standard business inside the Olympic movement, not criminal bribery.

The defense also will argue that cash payments wired to IOC members were in many cases meant to help impoverished athletes in their countries, Johnson's attorney, Max Wheeler, said.

Welch and Johnson face a count of conspiracy, five counts of mail fraud, five counts of wire fraud and four counts of interstate travel in aid of racketeering.

The charges carry a combined sentence of up to 75 years in prison.

Utah Attorney General Jan Graham also was expected to announce Monday the status of her inquiry into whether Welch or Johnson violated any state law.