Former Brazil Olympic boss sentenced to jail for corruption
SAO PAULO -- Carlos Arthur Nuzman, the head of the Brazilian
Olympic Committee for more than two decades, was sentenced to 30 years and 11
months in jail for buying votes for Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Olympics.
The ruling by Judge Marcelo Bretas became public Thursday.
Nuzman, who also headed the Rio organizing committee, was
found guilty of corruption, criminal organization, money laundering and tax
evasion.
The 79-year-old executive, who was an IOC member for 12
years including at the time his colleagues were allegedly bribed in the 2009
vote, won't be jailed until all his appeals are heard.
He and his lawyer did not comment on the decision.
Bretas also sentenced to jail former Rio Gov. Sergio Cabral,
businessman Arthur Soares and Leonardo Gryner, who was the Rio committee
director general of operations. Investigators say all three and Nuzman
coordinated to bribe the former president of the International Association of Athletics
Federations, Lamine Diack, and his son Papa Massata Diack for votes.
Cabral, who has been in jail since 2016 and faces other
convictions and investigations, told Bretas two years ago he paid about $2
million in exchange for up to six votes in the International Olympic Committee
meeting that awarded Rio the Olympic and Paralympic Games. He said the money
came from a debt owed to him by Soares.
Cabral, who governed Rio state from 2003-10, added that
another $500,000 was paid later to Diack’s son with the aim of securing three
more votes of IOC members. Lamine Diack was a senior IOC member at the time
Bretas' ruling labels Nuzman as "one of the main
responsibles for the promotion and the organization of the criminal scheme,
given his position in the Brazilian Olympic Committee and before international
authorities." The judge also said the sports executive "headed and
coordinated action of the other agents, clearly as a leader” to illegally
garnish support at the IOC.
The judge said he will send the results of the investigation
to authorities in Senegal, where Papa Massata Diack and Lamine Diack live, and
France. A French court in 2020 sentenced Lamine Diack to two years in jail for
corruption while leading track and field. Now 88, Diack returned to Senegal in
May.
Rio's bid beat Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid to host the 2016
Games in a vote held in Copenhagen..
Barack Obama traveled as the sitting president of the United
States to Denmark to campaign for his home city Chicago. Many years later while
still in office, he hinted at possible corruption in sports when he described
the 2016 Olympic vote as “a little bit cooked.”
The investigation in Brazil began in 2017 after French
newspaper Le Monde found members of the IOC had been bribed three days before
the vote.
In 2017, the IOC suspended Nuzman's honorary membership
which he has held since 2013 and has yet to be removed.
“Now, the IOC ethics commission will study the judgement
against Mr. Nuzman and will make its recommendations as soon as it receives the
full information from the Brazilian authorities,” the IOC said on Friday in a
statement.
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