ROME, March 15—Raffaele Ranucci, former head of the Rome Bid Committee for the 2004 Summer Olympics, today revealed that his Committee had hired former USOC director of international affairs and protocol Alfredo La Mont as a consultant.

La Mont, 50, has pleaded guilty to two counts of tax evasion in Salt Lake City, Utah on March 14th by not reporting extra income, but has agreed to co-operate with the Justice Department who aims to conclude their investigation by March 2001.

The charges against him are conspiracy to defraud the US and deter the IRS with a fine of US$250,000 and a five year sentence. The second is for filing a false tax return in 1997 and will carry a US$100,000 fine and a possible three year sentence. He also is accused of assisting the Bid committee in order to work against other US cities for the selection of Host City of the
1998 Winter Olympics which were awarded to Nagano.

La Mont makes the third person to be implicated in the Salt Lake City Bid scandal where the committee doled out over US$1 million in gifts, scholarships and perks.

He created a phantom Mexican company called Citius, Inc. to cash in $48,514 in consulting agreements with Salt Lake and $40,000 worth of Rome installments paid monthly. Ranucci confirmed that he was paid regularly via bank transfers and the relationship lasted about a year and a half. He added that his services were to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the bid in view of certain individuals, studies and analysis on world sport in conjunction with the actual presentation .

ARCA Inc. was another company that he used to launder money and funnel it to another IOC member Austin Sealy from Barbados who eventually was reprimanded by the IOC. He maintained that the money was destined for his son who was supposed to have been hired by them.

La Mont took in more than US$63,000 for his dealings with Latin American IOC members. It was pointed out in a USOC enquiry La Mont had had the USOC send US$20,000 to a bank in Washington for air and miscellaneous expenses for IOC members attending a meeting there.