USING INFLUENCE OR UNDER IT?

The wife of Dick Pound, a top International Olympic Committee member from Canada, was arrested early Wednesday when she kneed a policewoman after the officer tried to stop the couple jaywalking, police said.

Julie Pound was charged with obstruction, abusive language and simple battery after the incident. She had to be handcuffed, according to the arresting officer’s report, which said Pound, 56, had the “odor of alcohol on her breath and continued to act irrationally.”

Pound suffered a small scratch on her right wrist when arrested and the officer suffered a bruised inner thigh, the police report said.

Dick Pound is one of the prominent members of the IOC and has long been touted as a potential successor to IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch.

Dick Pound told the Atlanta Journal and Constitution that the police report was “highly inaccurate and self-serving.”

“I’m in a strange country, and I’m not sure how these things work,” he told the newspaper. “We were walking along peacefully and this is the last thing we expected. My wife is very upset.”