The two were taken off their flight from Brazil to the U.
Advertisement
Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz were heading home to the United States when authorities stopped them from leaving on a flight Wednesday night.
A Brazilian judge is sufficiently concerned that she orders Mr Lochte and Mr Feigen to surrender their passports.
A spokesperson for the USA consulate in Rio declined to answer specific questions on the case but said parties should work with Brazilian law enforcement in the investigation. He didn’t provide details. They were reportedly released upon condition of remaining in Brazil and cooperating with authorities who are investigating their accounts. The swimmers did not speak to reporters upon leaving the airport and getting shuttled away in a black auto waiting outside. They departed for an unspecified location in Brazil and had yet to testify, said attorney Sergio Viegas.
The foursome were held up by armed men dressed as police as they returned home in a taxi after a night of partying Saturday, Lochte originally told Today in an interview.
It’s the latest development in a odd case that has left many puzzled – and has led to accusations in Brazil that the American swimmers fabricated their account.
Meanwhile, Brazilian police removed two U.S. swimmers Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz from a plane in Rio de Janeiro as they search for Lochte.
“You can see the supposed victims arriving without signs of being physically or psychologically shaken, even joking amongst themselves”, Judge Keyla Blanc de Cnop said in a statement, according to The New York Times, which reported that a prosecutor in Rio said the swimmers could face charges of providing false testimony if they had lied to investigators.
“The guy pulled out his gun, he cocked it, put it to my forehead and he said, ‘Get down, ‘” Lochte said afterward. If there had been one gun, that might seem like a lot to the person at whom it was pointed.
“The swim team moved out of the village after their competition ended, so we were not able to make the athletes available”, spokesman Patrick Sandusky said. During a phone interview, Steve Lochte told The Associated Press that his son called him after arriving in the United States.
It appears Brazilian officials are not simply going to let this one go.
The other discrepancy was that Lochte had initially said the assailant had put a gun to his forehead. “It was an unfortunate experience for him and the other three”. I don’t know what they’re trying to do down there. Pereira and Pauletti left the party before the Americans, who told police that they caught a taxi at a nearby gas station.
Lochte has won 12 medals in his Olympic career including six gold.
He added that authorities in Rio have not found the taxi driver or corroborated any witness accounts of the incident.
Another doubt highlighted by the Brazilian judge concerns the time the swimmers reached the Athletes’ Village.
“Why would anybody fabricate anything?”
Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz were removed from their flight on Wednesday night as part of an investigation of a reported robbery.
Advertisement
Brazilians, meanwhile, took to Facebook and other social media to call the American swimmers as liars, according to media reports in the Olympics’ host nation. They declined to speak with reporters at the entrance to the station.
