The US Olympic Committee confirmed the pair had been taken off the plane.
Advertisement
Lochte told USA Today that he and his teammates didn’t initially tell the U.S. Olympic officials about the robbery “because we were afraid we’d get in trouble”.
Feigen is still in Brazil. The others were made to lie on the ground, but Lochte said he refused.
According to Lauer, however, Lochte said his initial interactions with police were “casual”, “friendly” and “vague”, and that “never during the questioning did they question his truthfulness”.
The threat of violent crime in Rio was widely reported before the games.
Lochte’s lawyer, Jeff Ostrow, has said there is no question the robbery happened.
Travelling with Lochte and 26-year-old Feigen were 21-year-old Gunnar Bentz and 20-year-old Jack Conger.
But the athletes were not there. “The swim team moved out of the village after their competition ended, so we were not able to make the athletes available”.
Earlier Wednesday, a Brazilian judge ruled that the passports of fellow swimmers James Feigen and Ryan Lochte should be seized after discrepancies emerged in their accounts of what transpired in the early hours of Sunday morning, after the four athletes left a dance party at the Club France official Olympic hospitality venue.
Under Brazilian law, filing a false police report can lead to six months detention or a fine. Lochte denied rumors of being with unsavory people but changed a key detail of his story, saying a gun was not put to his head but pointed at him.
“They were robbed at gunpoint – the way he described it”, Ostrow said.
The seizure warrant for the men’s passports, if served, would prevent them leaving the country.
He said the swimmers had $400 stolen.
But Lochte’s father told the Associated Press his son returned to the us before the order was issued Wednesday. Then it reported that Bentz and Conger were removed from an American Airlines flight that was bound for Atlanta.
U.S. women’s water polo advances to final: It will be the United States versus Italy for women’s water polo gold. He was not asked by the Brazilian authorities to remain in Brazil for further investigation.
“We stand by what he provided in that interview and signed off on”. Blanc said that Feigen, however, said that the athletes were surprised by some robbers, but that only one was armed.
“You can perceive that the supposed victims arrived with their physical and psychological state unshaken, even making jokes between themselves”, read a quote from Blanc in her court-issued statement, referencing security tape that she reviewed.
The video in question, posted on Britain’s Daily Mail tabloid website, shows the four swimmers passing through an X-ray machine, taking what could be wallets or cellphones from their pockets.
Another doubt highlighted by the Brazilian judge concerns the time at which the swimmers reached the Athletes’ Village.
CNN is unable to authenticate the video.
Police discovered after checks at Rio’s worldwide airport that Lochte, 32, had already left Brazil, where he won a relay gold medal in the Olympic swimming competition that ended on Saturday. So far, only one had done so, she said.
The U.S. Olympic Committee confirmed that the robbery took place on Sunday.
“We got pulled over, in the taxi, and these guys came out with a police badge, no lights, no nothing – just a police badge and they pulled us over”, he said.
Advertisement
Lochte’s lawyer, Jeffrey Ostrow, said he got back to the United States two days ago.
