Lochte and police do all agree on one thing: A gun was brandished, and money exchanged hands.
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The stories, however, seem to diverge at a single point – when Lochte re-entered a taxi after stopping at the station.
But a series of conflicting accounts by the athletes and authorities since then has caused confusion and turned the event into a diplomatic issue involving consular officials, lawyers, orders to confiscate passports and, now, the removal of athletes from a flight.
On Wednesday night, authorities took the extraordinary step of pulling Conger and Bentz from their flight home for questioning.
Following is the full text of Lochte’s statement, posted to his Instagram account.
Police said Feigen, the last of the four swimmers still in Brazil, had agreed at a hearing with a judge on Friday to pay 35,000 reais ($11,000) to a sporting charity after giving false testimony.
Security footage shows the athletes coming down a walkway at a gas station, as one appears to tear off a poster.
The 32-year-old Lochte, Bentz and Conger have returned to the United States, while Feigen was still in Brazil on Friday morning. Veloso said the swimmers broke a door, a soap dispenser and a mirror.
Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes said Friday he felt “pity and contempt” for the swimmers, saying he accepted the USA committee’s apology.
The US Olympic Committee said the robbery occurred after the athletes left a party at the French hospitality house.
The incident gave to a hashtag battle on social media, with some referring to it as #LochteGate and others preferring #Lochtemess.
Lochte also acknowledged that “this was a situation that could and should have been avoided”.
Though the USA committee apologized, the statement still largely corroborates Lochte’s account: The four were in a taxi, a gun was brandished and money was exchanged.
However, police called this a lie, and Rio’s mayor said on Friday he had “pity and contempt” for the swimmers.
“We got pulled over, in the taxi, and these guys came out with a badge, a police badge, no lights, no nothing just a police badge and they pulled us over”, Lochte told NBC’s “Today” the morning after the incident.
However, Rio police spotted inconsistencies in their initial statements and, following an investigation, civil police chief Fernando Veloso told a press conference that Lochte had lied to cover up a weird episode at a petrol station and the presence of two women the group had met at the party who were in a second taxi.
Lochte’s shifting account of the incident and the resulting fallout has threatened to steal the spotlight away from a Games that the International Olympic Committee president on Saturday declared “iconic”.
Bach said the level of competition was “extremely high” with “stunning” athlete performances. “Their claim that they are a victim of an assault or robbery or any kind of violence is not true”.
Ryan Lochte has finally apologised for being at the centre of the diplomatic incident which has overshadowed the second week of the Olympic Games.
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“I gave them what I had in my wallet, which was a $20 bill, and Jimmy gave them 100 reals, which is about $50 in total”, Bentz said. Another person stepped in to intervene between the athletes and the guards, and the athletes left money, police said. Veloso said the guards did not use excessive force and would have been justified in drawing their weapons because the athletes “were conducting themselves in a violent way”. Costa said Feigen’s passport would be returned and he would be able to leave Brazil after making the payment, ABC said.
