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U.S.O.C. Ensnared in Another Controversy
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
lawyer for a former United States Olympic Committee executive said yesterday that confidential
information about his client's relocation expenses was released to a Denver newspaper as part of an
effort to force the organization's embattled chief executive, Lloyd Ward, from his position. "The
release of confidential employee personnel documents and the subsequent dialogue about it creates a
gross distortion," said Philip Hilder, the lawyer for Toby Wong, the executive who resigned earlier
this month to pursue other business opportunities after only nine months as the Olympic committee's
chief marketing officer. "It is patently obvious to me that current and former members of the
U.S.O.C. are attempting to use Ms. Wong as a pawn in their attempts to remove Mr. Ward."
The Denver Post reported yesterday that Wong received a $50,000 relocation bonus and subsequently
billed the organization another $34,000 to stay in two Colorado Springs hotels while she planned to
relocate from an apartment outside of Phoenix. Hilder said the contract was cleared by the
U.S.O.C.'s compensation committee, and that it was clear to Wong that the $34,000 was approved by
Ward. But Mike McManus, of the compensation committee, said he never saw Wong's contract calling for
the bonus, rather that it was cleared by Ward and Paul George, the committee chairman. Senator Ben
Nighthorse Campbell, Republican of Colorado, who has called for Ward's resignation, told The Denver
Post that he had no doubt that Ward authorized Wong's hotel payments. "The C.E.O. authorizes things
like that," he said. "The buck lands on Ward's desk." The Denver Post received detailed information
about which days Wong stayed in the two hotels and how much the Olympic committee paid. She never
relocated, but she was preparing to look for a residence in Colorado Springs. Ward was recently the
subject of an ethics investigation into his directing a staff member to help advance a business
proposal from his brother and a friend to provide backup power for the Pan American Games in August
in the Dominican Republic. He eventually lost his $184,800 bonus for "creating the appearance of a
conflict of interest." In the aftermath of the ethics investigation, six Olympic officials resigned,
including Marty Mankamyer, the U.S.O.C. president. Ward was asked to step down in a private meeting
on Jan. 12 with William J. Hybl, a former president, but he has refused to leave. But one of his
public supporters, Bill Stapleton, a U.S.O.C. vice president, who led a group that forced
Mankamyer's ouster, is said to be ready to seek Ward's resignation, three Olympic officials said.
"Lloyd's outlived his usefulness to that group," said one member of the policy-making executive
committee, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Stapleton could not be reached. "I have no knowledge
of that," Ward said last night. "Your information is better than mine." He declined to comment on
any details of the Wong matter. Dissatisfaction with Ward stems from the ethics investigation, his
performance at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing in January into ethics problems at the
organization and his refusal to resign from Augusta National Golf Club, a men's-only club. Last
year, during the Salt Lake Winter Olympics, Ward said that he wanted to be his own chief marketing
officer. But two months later, he hired Wong, a former executive for Coca-Cola and Nike. Wong, who
was born in Canada, received an agreement that allowed her to commute from Arizona, where she had
applied for United States citizenship. (Hilder said immigration officials required her to maintain
that residence until her citizenship was approved.) Then, in negotiations for her severance package,
she agreed to repay about half of the $34,000 in hotel expenses because of a dispute with the
U.S.O.C. over personal and business costs. McManus said "some of the business expenses were deemed
excessive." Hilder would not say why Wong did not use her relocation bonus to make her hotel
payments. Last week, Hilder denied accusations made by Campbell that Wong was about to
severance of nearly $150,000 constituted "hush money."