U.S. Alleges Olympic Skating Bribery

An alleged Russian mobster was arrested Wednesday in Italy and charged with trying to bribe skating officials and fix the outcome of two Winter Olympics figure skating contests--including the controversial pairs skating competition--earlier this year in Salt Lake City.

Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, described as a major figure in the Russian mafia, was taken into custody near his resort home in Forte dei Marmi in northern Italy and faces U.S. conspiracy charges that could lead to 10 years in prison and $500,000 in fines, according to a federal complaint filed in Manhattan.

The dramatic allegations unveiled by U.S. Atty. James Comey suggest that Tokhtakhounov offered bribes to French skating officials and conspired to have French and Russian skating judges award each other’s teams gold medals in separate skating competitions. He did this, the complaint alleged, to curry favor with French Skating Federation officials in the hope of winning an extension for his expiring French visa.

The disclosures reignited the international controversy that flared in February, when a French skating judge said she was pressured to cast a deciding vote for a gold medal in pairs skating to the Russian team, even though many experts believed the Canadian pair of Jamie Sale and David Pelletier had deserved to win. The judge later recanted her statement, saying it had been made under duress.

After completing an investigation, the International Skating Union banned both the judge, Marie-Reine Le Gougne, and French Skating Federation President Didier Gailhaguet from international events for three years, but made no mention of possible underworld involvement. Subsequently, Olympic officials jointly awarded gold medals in the pairs competition to Canada and Russia.

But Wednesday’s arrest--the first of many in the case, Comey promised--showed that the duplicity thought to be associated with this year’s Olympic judging had reached a new level. The unprecedented investigation of mob involvement in the Olympic Games was a joint effort by FBI officials, Italian police agencies and the U.S. attorney’s office, which, Comey said, has had a “long-standing interest” in probing and keeping an eye on the activities of the Russian mafia. U.S. officials have requested the suspect’s prompt extradition.

Tokhtakhounov’s arrest revealed that “the long arm of Russian organized crime reached across the globe this past winter with a pair of fixes for the Winter Olympics,” Comey told a news conference. “The conspirators were saying: ‘We will make this [fix] happen. We will line up whatever support is going to be needed.’ ”

The story of how Tokhtakhounov attempted to rig one of the world’s elite sporting events is an eye-opening tale of gangsters with easy access to French and Russian skaters, brazenly confident of their ability to alter judging outcomes. The roots of the case, built heavily on wiretaps, go back several years, according to the complaint.

Tokhtakhounov, a Russian citizen born in Uzbekistan and believed to be in his 50s, had approached Gailhaguet two years ago, offering “large amounts of money” to fund a French professional hockey team, authorities said. French officials had indicated they could not afford to organize and promote such an organization.

In return, the alleged mobster--who has fixed beauty contests in Moscow and has been involved in drug distribution, illegal gun sales and trafficking in stolen vehicles, according to federal prosecutors--wanted French authorities to extend his visa. Earlier, the government had asked Tokhtakhounov to leave the country, causing him to relocate in Italy.

French Skating Federation officials told FBI agents that they had rebuffed Tokhtakhounov, believing the issue was dead. But wiretapped conversations this year put him in the thick of an apparent effort to orchestrate vote-swapping by French and Russian skating judges.

According to prosecutors, Tokhtakhounov helped organize a “quid pro quo” in which a French judge would help award a gold medal to the Russian pair skating team of Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze; in return, Russian judges would ensure that the French ice-dancing team of Marina Anissina--a Russian who was a member of the French team--and Gwendal Peizerat would also win a gold medal. Both teams ultimately won the gold.

The conspiracy came to light in February, as the Games were unfolding in Utah, when Italian police taped several conversations between the alleged mobster and Russian and French skaters. On Feb. 12, the day after the Russian pair won the gold medal, an unidentified member of the Russian Skating Federation told Tokhtakhounov, “Our Sikharulidze fell, the Canadians were 10 times better, and in spite of that, the French with their vote gave us first place.”

Then the federation member, in an apparent reference to the French team’s chances in the ice dancing competition six days away, told Tokhtakhounov: “Everything is going the way you need it.”

In a March 7 conversation, an unidentified female ice dancer discussed the gold medal results with Tokhtakhounov. He said that a member of the Russian skating federation had told him that “everything will be OK, [the female ice dancer] should not be concerned, let her perform even if she falls, everything will be OK.”

Comey said the investigation was continuing, but he refused to say whether Anissina or anyone else were targets of the probe.

Suspicions of vote-swapping and national bias on the part of judges have long clouded figure skating, and a Ukrainian ice-dance judge was suspended after the 1998 Nagano Games for telling another judge in a taped phone conversation how the competition would finish. But the pairs judging scandal at Salt Lake City threatened to engulf the Games and fatally undermine the sport’s credibility.

Now, with allegations of mob involvement in the Winter Games, prominent skating officials reacted with anger and disbelief. International Olympic Committee spokeswoman Giselle Davies said: “This kind of alleged activity has no place in the Olympic movement. At this early stage, we will wait for the U.S. judicial process to take its course but we will be following developments very closely.”

Skate Canada President Marilyn Chidlow and Chief Executive Pam Coburn said their organization was shocked by the arrest, terming the revelations “unbelievable [and] a major concern to Skate Canada.” They added, “These new developments point to the immediate importance of changing the current judging system to build in protection for honest judges.”

Anita DeFrantz, the senior IOC delegate in the U.S., said, “I am appalled that this system of judging can be so manipulated as the allegations suggest. The athletes should be outraged. They put their best performance out there for the public, and it’s horrible to learn that the decision may have been made before the event began.”

LeGougne’s attorney, Maxwell Miller of Salt Lake City, said that Wednesday’s developments were news to him and added that his client was not implicated. “All I can tell you is no evidence of this was presented in Lausanne about these allegations,” he said, referring to an ISU hearing this year regarding LeGougne’s alleged misconduct during the Olympics. “She’s not a target of this, as far as we know.... It seems to me this raises more questions than answers.”

Liz DeSevo, the agent for Anissina and Peizerat, said she had not spoken to them Wednesday because they were in England, to perform in a figure skating gala for Queen Elizabeth II.

Getlin reported from New York, Elliott from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Alan Abrahamson contributed to this story.