Rio’s Public Ministry says USA swimmer Jimmy Feigen should pay about $50,000 or more than four times what he was ordered to pay by a Brazilian judge.
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In a statement posted on Twitter on Friday however, the twelve-time Olympic medalist apologized for his behavior.
It was after Lochte’s verbal altercation with a guard that Bentz said a customer approached the group and offered to serve as interpreter for both sides. The man told the Americans they needed to pay the guards in order to leave.
Having paid, Blackmun said, they were permitted to leave.
The guards lowered their guns and the swimmers left, walking down the street to find another cab to take them back to the Olympic Village. Here’s Bentz’s full statement. Lochte had pulled a metal advertising sign off a wall as the quartet of swimmers urinated behind the gas station, he said, but there was no damage to a bathroom or its door, which was locked. Two other swimmers, Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz, were pulled from their flight on Wednesday and interrogated – and eventually confessed that the story had been fabricated.
The four sportsmen initially said they had been robbed as they travelled back to the athletes’ village after a party on Sunday. “No guns were drawn during this exchange, but we did see a gun tucked into one of the guard’s waistband”.
In his statement, Bentz apologized to United States officials, his teammates and his university. Lochte said one of the men even pointed a gun to his forehead and robbed the men of their cash.
The case quickly spiraled into an global matter involving consular officials, lawyers and judicial orders.
Gunnar Bentz, one of the US Olympic swimmers embroiled in an global incident over an alleged robbery in Rio, has issued a statement detailing what happened. Lochte had already returned to the United States by the time police began their investigation.
On Instagram he said: “I want to apologise for my behavior last weekend – for not being more careful and candid in how I described events of that early morning”.
He said he accepted responsibility for his role in the case and had “learned some valuable lessons”. Lochte broke his silence about the matter the next morning, on Friday.
Ryan Lochte took to his Instagram account Friday morning to issue an apology over his Rio Olympics gun-point robbery story, which Brazilian police say was a complete lie with footage to back up their claim that the U.S. swimmers destroyed a Rio gas station and were warned by armed security to pay for the damages.
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Lochte, who has six Olympic gold medals, claimed that the quartet had been robbed at gunpoint by someone impersonating a police officer when their taxi stopped to refuel. “And that’s when he says two men approached the auto with guns and badges”.
