“I left certain things out, and I over-exaggerated some parts of the story”. “And if I had never done that, we wouldn’t be in this mess”, Lochte told Lauer. “Whether you call it a robbery, whether you call it extortion, or us paying just for the damages, like, we don’t know”, Lochte responded.
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That left younger team-mates Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger and Jimmy Feigen to have their passports pulled, be questioned by police, and be paraded in front of cameras in a story that threatened to overwhelm the actual competition in the second week of the Rio Games.
According to Lochte, all they knew was that there was a gun pointed in their direction and they were demanded to give money.
The gold medalist, 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. “It was my immature behavior”. “I just wanted to make sure they were home safe before I came out to talk”.
Lochte – the victor of six Olympic gold medals – and three other top U.S. swimmers sparked a controversy by falsely saying they had been robbed at gunpoint at a Rio gas station while attending the Olympics.
Ryan Lochte accepted more responsibility for his role in a late-night incident during the Rio Olympics that drew worldwide attention after he said he and three teammates had been robbed at gunpoint and local police called that a fabrication.
“We were all frightened”, Lochte added. And we wanted to get out of there as quick as possible. “The only way we knew was this guy saying we have to give them money”.
That portion of the story aired on Saturday’s NBC Nightly News.
When asked about Rio police painting him as a “vandal” vs. a victim, Lochte stopped short of saying he was a vandal.
In an interview with the Associated Press, a Brazilian who stepped in at the gas station to mediate the conflict between the swimmers and guards said there was no gun pointed at the swimmers during the encounter. Pointing a gun at them?
“The prosecutors office believes that 35,000 reais is not enough given the gravity and wide negative repercussions of the crime committed by the swimmer”, prosecutors said in a statement received in the early hours of Saturday.
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At 32 years old, Lochte has won 12 medals during his Olympic career.
