2016 The Rio Olympics chief has been jailed to 30 years in jail for buying votes

Key takeaways:

• Carlos Arthur Nuzman, the head of the Brazilian Olympic Committee, was sentenced to 30 years and 11 months in prison.
• Rio de Janeiro knocked out Chicago, Tokyo, and Madrid to host the 2016 Olympics.

For over two decades, Carlos Arthur Nuzman, the Brazilian Olympic Committee’s president, was sentenced to 30 years and 11 months in prison for illegally purchasing votes for Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Olympics.

Judge Marcelo Bretas’ decision was made public on Thursday.

Nuzman was found guilty of corruption, criminal organization, money laundering, and tax evasion. He served as the chairman of the Rio 2016 organizing committee. The 79-year-old executive will not be jailed until all of his appeals have been heard.

He and his attorney had no comment on the decision.

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Bretas also condemned former Rio governor Sergio Cabral, billionaire Arthur Soares, and Rio 2016 committee director-general of operations Leonardo Gryner to prison. According to investigators, the three and Nuzman worked together to pay former International Association of Athletics president Lamine Diack and his son Papa Diack for votes.

Cabral, who has been imprisoned since 2016 and is facing a slew of additional charges and inquiries, told Bretas two years ago that he had given around $2 million in exchange for up to 6 votes at the IOC meeting Rio the Olympic and Paralympic Games. He said the funds came from debt due to him by Soares.

Cabral, governor of Rio de Janeiro from 2003 to 2010, said that another $500,000 was later given to Diack’s son to get three more votes from IOC members.

Nuzman is named in Bretas’ verdict as “one of the principals responsible for the promotion and organization of the criminal plan, considering his position in the Brazilian Olympic Committee and before international authorities.” 

According to the judge, the sports executive also “directed and coordinated action of the other agents, plainly as a leader,” to fraudulently garner support at the IOC.

The judge stated that the investigation’s findings would be sent to authorities in Senegal and France, respectively, where Papa Diack and Lamine Diack reside.

Rio de Janeiro knocked out Chicago, Tokyo, and Madrid to host the 2016 Olympics.

The inquiry in Brazil began in 2017 after the French publication Le Monde discovered that members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had been bribed 3 days of the 2009 session in Copenhagen, where Rio was elected to host the Games.

Source: Global News

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