According to internal documents obtained from the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, the two indicted Salt Lake bid executives Tom Welch and Dave Johnson ran the bid committee like a travel agency for the IOC. And they had the help of Toronto-area resident Mahmoud El-Farnawani, an Olympic consultant, who was paid $148,260 for his efforts.
The U.S. State Department and political leaders were pressured by the bid leaders to admit the sons of Libyan IOC member Bashir Attarabulsi to the U.S. While one son was rejected because he was a member of the Libyan military which was considered hostile by the United States, the other son got a visa and was given $60,000 from the bid committee to attend Utah schools.
But in 1995, after Salt Lake won the 2002 Winter Games, Welch had to restrain El-Farnawani, an Egyptian-born Canadian citizen, when the consultant was arranging a second U.S. visit for IOC member Mohamed Zerguini of Algeria and his family.
Welch offered to pay $5,700 in air fares for Zerguini and a son, but would not pay for his wife or a second son.
Zerguini was reprimanded by the IOC because Salt Lake bid officials had doled out $500 a month for 29 months to a supposed relative of Zerguini, Raouf Scally, for no reason that the two bid officials could explan to an ethics panel. Scally got $14,500 in all.
Meanwhile Attarabulsi resigned in the wake of the bribery scandal. He had received free medical services in Utah on one visit and was accompanied by family members on trips to Wyoming and Disneyland. In all his family cost the bid committee $91,000.
