Federal police say Lochte left Brazil on Monday on a commercial flight, two days before the judicial order.
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The swimmers did not speak to reporters as they left the airport, driven away in a black auto waiting outside. Powers expelled Conger and Bentz from their flight before it left Rio airplane terminal on Wednesday night.
Security camera footage from the swimmers’ return to the Olympic Village early Sunday morning, however, shows a picture to the Brazilian authorities that does not connect with such a traumatic event.
Conger and Bentz were expected to speak with police.
Brazilian police stopped two U.S. Olympic swimmers from boarding a flight home on Wednesday to question them about how they and two team mates were robbed at gunpoint in Rio de Janeiro at the weekend, after a judge raised doubts over their accounts. He now says the taxi wasn’t pulled over by men with a badge but rather the athletes were robbed after stopping at a gas station, NBC reported.
One of the swimmers tried to open a locked bathroom door at a gas station in the Rio suburb of Barra da Tijuca, according to the Associated Press.
Law enforcement officials say they want to clear up several discrepancies in the swimmers’ stories. Local outlets report that a security guard pulled out his gun to keep them from leaving without paying.
Police interviewed Lochte and one other swimmer, who said they had been intoxicated and could not remember what type and color of taxi they rode in or where the robbery happened, the police official said. Using a customer to translate, the manager asked the swimmers to pay for the broken door. Shortly afterward, Lochte’s mother, Ileana Lochte, told the media the swimmers were in a taxi when confronted by people with guns, who stole their wallets. Well, after digging a little further in the case, the police found many inconsistencies with the swimmers’ accounts of the incident – and a judge chose to confiscate their passports and forbid them from leaving Brazil until the case is closed. But even as new details emerge, Rio 2016 spokesman Mario Andrada downplayed the case’s significance at a briefing Thursday morning.
“We have seen media reports that two USA citizen athletes were detained, ” Kirby said.
Sandusky said Lochte’s teammates “are cooperating with authorities and in the process of scheduling a time and place today to provide further statements to the Brazilian authorities”.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) declined to comment.
He says his client, a gold medal victor in the pool in Rio, has been cooperative with authorities and has not been asked again for assistance. “Let’s give these kids a break”, Andrada said. Sometimes you make decisions that you later regret. We’re told one or more of the guys was peeing outside the bathroom, and also kicked in the bathroom door. “They had fun, they made a mistake, life goes on”. Lochte is believed to be already in the United States, having left before Brazilian authorities ordered the swimmers be questioned.
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The removal came amid increasing tension between Brazilian authorities and the American swimmers over their account of the robbery. Police say they have found little evidence to back up the swimmers’ stories. Police say the swimmers’ accounts conflict, and details are murky. The swimmers said they departed France House at about 4 a.m., while a surveillance video showed they checked back in to the athletes village at 6:56 a.m., the judge wrote.
