The two men and fellow US swimmers Ryan Lochte and James Feigen reported being robbed at gunpoint early Sunday in a taxi bound for the Olympic Village by individuals posing as armed police officers, the US Olympic Committee said.
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Ostrow has said there is no question the robbery occurred.
Authorities are concerned about inconsistencies in their reports.
However, Olympic officials have said police are still looking for key witnesses, including the cab driver.
After checks at Rio’s worldwide airport, police sources said they believed Lochte had already left Brazil where he won a relay gold medal in the Olympic swimming competition that ended on Saturday.
Police interviewed Lochte and one other swimmer, who said they had been intoxicated and could not remember what type and colour of taxi they rode in or where the robbery happened, the police official said.
If Feigen remains, he’ll have some company in Conger and Bentz, who are being forced for the moment to remain in Rio. The two were taken off their flight from Brazil to the USA on Wednesd.
“He’s the victim. He didn’t commit a crime”.
“The story needs to be about 20-something-year-old kids pulled off an airplane, they’re being detained to testify to police?”
A lawyer for Conger and Bentz said Thursday that they won’t be allowed to leave Brazil until they provide testimony to investigators.
“They were shocked. They were taken off of a plane and told that they needed to be deposed in a coercive manner, which, of itself, is a departure from the judicial norm”, Riera said.
Men brandishing police badges ordered them to lay on the ground.
It’s not clear if the two had their passports confiscated.
Lauer said he asked Lochte about skepticism that his story may have been fabricated but the swimmer balked at that suggestion.
Lochte told NBC that he and three other swimmers, including Feigen, were robbed when their taxi was stopped. NBC is broadcasting the Games in Rio. Lochte said two men tried to force them to the ground, one pointing a gun inches from him when he refused. And, unlike Lochte’s previous claim that one robber put the gun to his head and cocked it, Lauer says the swimmer told him, “That’s not exactly what happened”.
Lochte left Brazil before a judge ordered the two swimmers to turn over their passports and remain in Brazil.
Instead of being pulled over by the men, Lochte said the swimmers stopped at a gas station to go to the bathroom when the robbers showed up. Lochte said he told authorities he was reachable and would cooperate.
Brazilian authorities are skeptical of Lochte’s original allegations, and have so far been unable to track down the taxi driver involved or find further evidence to corroborate the swimmers’ accounts.
But the athletes were not there.
(AP Photo/Mauro Pimentel). Accompanied by Brazilian lawyer Sergio Viegas, second from right, American Olympic swimmers Gunnar Bentz, center, and Jack Conger, right, leave the police station at Rio International airport early Thursday Aug. 18, 2016. The.
“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.
And Blank’s office said the judge was probing “possible inconsistencies in the swimmers’ stories”.
Feigen said he did not want to comment further until the matter is resolved.
Ostrow denied that assertion, telling CNN that the stories of all four victims line up “95%”.
The US Olympic Committee (USOC) later confirmed the swimmers’ accounts.
And public speculation was fueled by the release of a video obtained by the Daily Mail, which it said was filmed shortly after the robbery.
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Lochte compared the way police questioned him to a time in the United States when he talked with police after being robbed, Lauer said.
