One of the U.S. Olympic swimmers involved in Ryan Lochte’s fabricated tale of robbery in Rio has reached a deal to donate nearly $11,000 to a sports academy for kids in order to leave Brazil, his lawyer said Friday.
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According to information announced via television channel Globo, Feigen was accused of “communicating a false crime” and after testifying for four hours before the court, Feigen agreed to pay the set fine. He did not say what institute would receive the money.
Sérgio Riera, the attorney representing Bentz and Conger, told the newspaper his clients will be allowed to leave the country without paying the government because they never gave a public testimony.
The gold medallist, together with team mate Ryan Lochte, were blamed by police for falsely reporting that they had been robbed at gunpoint after a party early on Sunday.
He told reporters that one or more of the athletes had instead vandalised a toilet in a petrol station and then offered to pay for the damage. “They did not lie in their statements”.
In their statement, Bentz, Conger and Feigen blamed the more famous and absent Lochte for inventing the story even though he had previously appeared on United States television to talk about the alleged assault at gunpoint in Rio, where the swimmers had been competing in the Olympics.
Through the justice system, Feigen apologised to the Brazilians and the authorities that had been involved in solving the case which has generated a lot of controversy in Brazil. The guy pulled out his gun, he cocked it, put it to my forehead and said ‘get down.’ I was like [puts hands up] I put my hands up. When they realized there was no bathroom inside the gas station, Conger said they walked behind the gas station and urinated outside. “They were not victims of the crimes they claimed”, Civil Police Chief Fernando Veloso said during a conference on Thursday.
Bentz told investigators that he saw Lochte giving an account of the night’s events to US media – Lochte spoke with NBC on Sunday afternoon.
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“There has already been too much said and too many valuable resources dedicated to what happened last weekend, so I hope we spend our time celebrating the great stories and performance of these Games and look ahead to celebrating future successes”, he wrote.
