Last week, the world was shocked by reports that Ryan Lochte and three other American swimmers were robbed at gunpoint following a night out with some of their fellow OIympians in Rio de Janeiro.
In the days that followed, the story took a number of bizarre twists and turns, and now the US athletes and Brazilian authorities are offering up very different takes on the investigation that followed.
According to reports issued by a number of media outlets this morning, Rio cops were authorized to seize the passports of Lochte and fellow swimmer James Feigen so that they would be forced to stay in Brazil until the investigation was completed.
However, Lochte is already back in the States, and though the swimmer has yet to comment personally, his reps say they received no word of the the search and seizure warrant issued by Judge Keyla Blanc De Cnop.
A lawyer for Lochte says the 32-year-old swimmer “would have stayed” in Rio’s Olympic Village had he been made aware of the warrant.
Feigen’s whereabouts are currently unknown, but it is believed he has returned to the United States or is at least en route.
The entire US swim team had reportedly moved out of the Olympic Village by the time police arrived on Wednesday morning.
Lochte told reporters that he and the other athletes had their cash and wallets stolen by armed bandits who initially pretended to be police officers.
Judge De Cnop now says the men gave conflicting accounts of the crime.
Bizarrely, the judge also cited Lochte and company’s “attitudes” as further evidence that they misled authorities:
“It seems like the victims arrived with an unshaken physical and psychological state, making jokes with each other,” says De Cnop.
Lochte’s lawyer, Jeff Ostrow, says Brazilian authorities never gave any indication that anything was amiss.
“They never said, ‘Stay around,"” Ostrow told reporters today. “Otherwise, I would have advised Ryan to stay.”
We’ll have further updates on this increasingly bizarre story as more information becomes available.
