Posted on 07/31/2002 12:18:42 PM PDT by xp38
New York — An alleged Russian crime boss was arrested in Italy on U.S. charges he tried to fix the pairs and ice dancing figure skating competitions at the Salt Lake City Olympics, according to a federal criminal complaint filed Wednesday.
Alimzan Tokhtakhounov was arrested at his resort in Forte dei Marmi in northern Italy. He was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit bribery relating to sporting contests. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count.
The criminal complaint filed in Manhattan federal court identified Tokhtakhounov as a "major figure in international Eurasian Oganized Crime."
According to the complaint, Tokhtakhounov "has been involved in drug distribution, illegal arms sales and trafficking in stolen vehicles." A confidential source told the FBI that he also had fixed beauty pageants in Moscow in the early 1990s.
The complaint alleges he used his influence with members of the Russian and French skating federations "in order to fix the outcome of the pairs and ice dancing competitions at the 2002 Olympics."
The court papers also allege he worked with "unnamed co-conspirators."
Prosecutors allege that Tokhtakhounov schemed to get the French judge to vote for the Russian pairs figure skating team of Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, who won the gold medal.
In exchange, he arranged for the Russian judge to vote for the French ice dancing team of Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat of France.
By winning the ice dancing competition by a 5-4 split of the judges, the Russian-born Anissina and Peizerat ended Russian domination of the event Russians had won four straight and six of the previous seven Olympic ice dancing events.
Federal investigators said they have in their possession recorded telephone conversations between Tokhtakhounov and a French ice dancer, in which he brags about being able to influence the outcome of competitions, a senior law enforcement official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official was not certain whether the ice dancer was one of the winning team members, when the conversation was recorded or by which authorities.
The complaint made clear that the case was based on confidential informants and wiretaps. At one point, it said wiretaps caught the defendant talking to a female ice dancer's mother, telling her that "we are going to make your daughter an Olympic champion — even if she falls, we will make sure she is No. 1."
Figure skating at the Salt Lake City Games was marked by the biggest judging scandal in Olympic history.
Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze won the gold medal by the slimmest of margins in pairs figure skating, defeating Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier. But French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne said the next day that she'd been pressured to put the Russians first, and the Canadians were later given duplicate gold medals. Le Gougne was suspended, as was the head of the French skating federation.
The ice dancing competition also was a point of controversy.
Lithuanians Margarita Drobiazko and Povilas Vanagas, who finished fifth, filed a protest questioning the voting that placed the couple lower than the Italian and Canadian couples who fell during the free dance, the final phase of the competition. The International Skating Union rejected the protest.
The Lithuanians said they didn't expect to win their appeal but came forward to generate publicity and expose judging inconsistencies.
"We wouldn't have done it unless there was such a stark realization that something was wrong, especially with the two skaters falling," said John Domanskis, spokesman for the Lithuanian Olympic team. "That certainly made it easier for our skaters to say, 'Yes, there is a problem, and it should be corrected."'
Russia's Irina Lobacheva and Ilia Averbukh took silver in ice dancing, Italy's Barbara Fusar Poli and Maurizio Margaglio got the bronze, and Canada's Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz were fourth.
Bourne and Kraatz's chances were compromised by a last-second fall in Salt Lake. They also finished fourth at the 1998 Olympics.
In Salt Lake, the top eight in the ice dancing competition did not change throughout all three phases of the competition.
The judges representing Lithuania, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Poland opted for the French couple in the final phase of the competition. Judges from Russia, Switzerland, Germany and Italy supported the Russians.
I don't know how you can avoid impropriety in 'subjective' contests such as skating, dance, etc. Without objesctive criteria, it seems to me that anything goes.
And, the very notion of them as competitive sports strikes me as odd. Why not have competitive abstract painting as an Olympic event?
Also, this from the article
told the FBI that he also had fixed beauty pageants in Moscow in the early 1990s
struck me as odd.
I've always assumed all 'beauty contests' were decided in advance.
The problem isn't the judges in and of themselves, the problem is the ISU not enforcing the rules. There ARE rules the judges are supposed to follow. The ISU is a joke and is ruining the sport. These judging scandals have been going on for a long time. The ISU should have put a stop to it years ago.
Say it ain't so. Not ice skating. How could this be?< /sarcasm>
Many viewers thought this wasn't a bad call.
Too bad Tanya Harding didn't make friends with this Russki crook...he would have done a better job with Kerrigan's knees. The irony of Tonya Harding is that she was arguably a better skater than Kerrigan and might have won fair and square. But she's a tramp, and has been in news lately on unsavory drinking and brawling charges.
Skating is supposed to be a class act. Oh well.
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