Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte almost drowned in news stories last week as Brazilian, Olympic officials and compliant media faulted him and fellow swimmers after guns had been pointed at them and they forked over $50.

After so many instances of mass murders by guns and individual shootings of sometimes innocent victims in the U.S., anything involving guns is cause for almost hysterical commentary, with gun wielders bearing the brunt of the criticisms. Real police pull out badges on civilians, not guns.

The pointing of guns at four swimmers in the early morning hours of Aug. 15, coupled with demands for money, is deemed less important than charges that the swimmers broke a door, damaged a soap dispenser, or tore down a sign at a gas station.

Swimmer Gunnar Bentz told USA Today that the four swimmers never entered the bathroom but urinated behind the building. USA Today said one of its videographers who visited the bathroom found no damage to soap dispensers or mirrors nor any broken door. Videos do not show any of the swimmers going near the bathroom. Lochte tore down a "loosely attached" advertising sign from a wall, Bentz told USA Today.


Lochte, in interviews with NBC’s Matt Lauer, stuck by his story that guns were pointed at the swimmers by uniformed guards and demands were made for money before the swimmers would be allowed to leave. He withdrew an earlier claim that the gun had been pointed “at his forehead.” That is a minor detail when a gun is involved.

Brazilian authorities, and some of the press, would have the public believe that the change in the story amounted to “lying” and pressing “false charges” against the police and that Lochte and the swimmers are the goats in this incident. Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post was especially harsh on Lochte, calling him an “obnoxious American.”

One of those who pulled a gun, The New York Times reported, was an off-duty prison guard working a second job at the gas station. Rio authorities have refused to identify the off-duty guards.

Publicist, Lawyer Push Lochte’s Side

Publicist Matthew Hiltzik and lawyer Jeffrey Ostrow presented Lochte’s side to the media but were getting short shrift. The Aug. 20, New York Post, in a story headlined “Lochte Pity Party,” carried remarks by Lochte at the very end. He stood by his initial claim that he and his teammates were held up and “extorted” at gunpoint, admitting that he changed some details of his original story.

According to Brazil authorities, that was “lying.” Jumping in on the castigation of the four athletes was the Rio Olympics Committee which said it accepted Lochte’s apology for what it called a “false robbery claim.”

Mario Andrada, communications director, told US Weekly: "We obviously accept Lochte's apologies. However, we think the Brazilian people were hurt by their [swimmers] attitude. It was clear that much of the population felt humiliated by this false robbery claim and people worried that the image of Brazil was damaged by this incident.”

Accusers Are Accused; Jury Trials Absent

The pattern we see when charges are made that something bad has happened, is that the tables are turned on the accusers who themselves are put on trial in the media. The cases never get to a jury. Confusion is often the aim. NYT noted Aug. 18 that jury trials have about “vanished” and “justice is served behind closed doors.”

For instance, Sofitel hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo in 2011 accused International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn of forcing her to perform a sex act on him.

There were discrepancies in her story including a delay in telling the police. A barrage of negative charges was leveled against her including making false claims on her asylum application. No jury ever got the case. Prosecutors said they had too many doubts about her veracity.

However, she pursued the charges and won a $6 million settlement in 2012, the New York News reported.

Duke Prosecutor Went on Trial

Michael Nifong, Durham County, N.C., district attorney, in 2006 charged three Duke University lacrosse players with rape based on testimony he received from stripper Crystal Gail Mangum. However, lacking such evidence, he changed the charges to kidnapping (detaining her in a bathroom) and a sexual offense.

The case was argued extensively in the press and court filings, according to Wikipedia. Mangum’s family demanded a jury trial but N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper on April 11, 2007 dismissed all charges against the three lacrosse players and declared them innocent.

Cooper said Mangum would not be prosecuted because those who interviewed her thought "she may actually believe the many different stories that she has been telling" and "it's in the best interest of justice not to bring charges." He called Nifong a “rogue prosecutor.”

Nifong was disbarred and served one day in jail. In 2008 he declared bankruptcy, listing $243,898 in assets and $180 million in liabilities, mostly from pending lawsuits. Until this incident, his record had been free of any charges of misbehavior.

No Trial in Alleged FIU Rape Incident

Three students of Florida International University were arrested on charges of rape on Dec. 20, 2010 after admitting they had sex at the Atlantis Resort & Casino in the Bahamas with two 17-year-old women. One of the students was Garrett Wittels, a prominent college athlete since he had a 56-game baseball hitting streak.

The charges were dropped in June 2011by Bahamian prosecutors who decided there was not enough evidence. There was no trial. The veracity of accuser Laura Montgomery was questioned. The players said the sex was consensual. Bahamian authorities said video of the behavior of those involved while they were at the bar of the Atlantis indicated that all were on friendly terms.

An attempt by the father of one of the women to have the case transferred to Fort Lauderdale federal court was rejected by U.S. District Judge James Cohn in May 2013. Defense attorney Richard Sharpstein told USA Today that the case was “an outrageous persecution of Garrett based on perjured testimony, a pack of lies told by these young ladies and encouraged by one of their fathers, who attempted to execute an extortion scam against Atlantis.”

NYT, which covered the Duke incident in great detail, only picked up two brief AP reports on the charges against the three students. One was an 80-word AP story that ran Dec. 27, 2010 as part of Michael Schmidt’s column in the sports section.

NYT’s coverage of Wittels was extensive until he was hit with the rape charges. Reporter Karen Crouse on June 2, 2010 said the Wittels streak had been a “ray of sunshine” for the school after the fatal stabbing of football player Kendall Berry on campus March 25, 2010. That had “cast a pall” over the athletic program, she wrote.

Two Other Cases in Need of Jury Verdicts

Twelve authors discovered in 1994 that PR Society of America was selling copies of their copyrighted works without their permission. Some 3,500 “info packs” with many thousands of pages of copyrighted works were being sold at prices from $21 to $55 each year, netting annual profits of about $60,000.

Lawyers told the authors they had a solid case but warned that the costs of impaneling a jury and handling counter charges that would no doubt be filed against each author could run into the hundreds of thousands. The case could drag on for years, they warned The Society refused any out-of-court negotiations and the authors gave up. Justice was too expensive.

Southampton, Westhampton Beach and Quogue battled since 2011 legal actions by the East End Eruv Assn. declaring that Orthodox Jews had the right to place religious markers on utility poles that would allow those in the enclosed area to do certain forms of otherwise prohibited work on the Sabbath. After the filing of billions of words and payment of millions in fees to law firms involved, the three towns agreed to all demands of EEEA. Courts found that the markers either did not fit the legal description of a “sign” or that other “signs” had been allowed on the poles so therefore the EEEA’s signs were allowable.

There was never any move to put the issue to a jury of average-income citizens of any of the towns.

PRSA, Criticized, Takes Combative Quasi-Legal Route

PRSA, instead of making recompense to the authors or responding to other criticisms made by the O’Dwyer Co., such as its habit of booking dues as cash rather than spreading them over the next year, which boosts “net assets” by about $2.5 million, went on a combative legal route rather than a compromising PR route.

It spent $646,833 on outside legal counsel in the nine years ended Dec. 31, 2014 while spending small amounts on “ethics.” The 2015 spend on that was a record low $945.

The Society in 2011 publicized 23 pages of charges against the O’Dwyer Co. and Jack O’Dwyer in a move to discredit us. The charges mentioned none of those making such charges. We rebutted all of them, one of which accused us of “harassing” college students by offering them $200 to cover a talk before a chapter in 2010 by Society president Mike Cherenson.

The charges were emailed to the National Press Club and Liz Krueger, New York State Senator for our district, both of whom dismissed the charges and urged the Society to lift its ban on O’Dwyer reporters covering the national conference of the Society or exhibiting its five informational products. The Society refused and continues to refuse both requests.