The man who brought the Olympics to South America for the first time has been sentenced to more than 30 years in prison after a judge in Brazil ruled that Rio de Janeiro’s success at securing the 2016 Summer Games was built on a bribery scheme.
The verdict against Carlos Arthur Nuzman, the former longtime head of Brazil’s Olympic committee and once a towering figure within the International Olympic Committee, came four years after he was detained by the authorities as part of a joint investigation into sports corruption by investigators in Brazil and France.
Nuzman, who also served as the head of the Rio 2016 organizing committee, was found guilty of corruption, criminal organization, money laundering and tax evasion in a ruling published late Thursday.