The date is Dec. 28. Jeff Gillooly has just been dropped off by his ex-wife, Tonya Harding, at the home of Harding's bodyguard, Shawn Eckardt. Inside, Gillooly, Eckardt and two out-of-town thugs for hire discuss ways to keep Nancy Kerrigan from competing Jan. 7 and 8 in the U.S. figure-skating championships in Detroit. Methodically the four men run down their options: cut Kerrigan's Achilles tendon, break her leg or kneecap, kill her. According to Gillooly, he then calls Harding and asks her to pick him up. As Gillooly drives, he details a proposed $2,000 deal that carries a money-back guarantee. If Gillooly is to be believed, their dialogue goes something like this:
H: How do you feel about it?
G: Pretty good, but I'll leave it up to you.
H: No, I'll leave it up to you.
G: I think we should go for it.
H: O.K., let's do it.
On Saturday, the U.S. Figure Skating Association decided that the evidence against Harding was sufficient to enforce one of its rules: "Any person whose acts, statements or conduct is considered detrimental to the welfare of figure skating is subject to the loss of the privilege of registration by the U.S.F.S.A." The association ruled that Harding must face a disciplinary hearing. She has 30 days to appeal the U.S.F.S.A. decision -- which means the U.S. Olympic Committee will have to make a final decision by Feb. 21, two days before the women's competition begins. Meanwhile, prosecutors declined to confirm reports that Harding will be charged this week with "hindering prosecution" by lying about when she first learned of the Kerrigan plot.
Still, nowhere in the 17 1/2 hours of testimony provided for investigators by Gillooly on Jan. 26 and 27 and released last week by Oregon's Multnomah County circuit court did he give evidence that independently corroborated his charge that Harding gave the go-ahead for the assault on Kerrigan. Despite Gillooly's guilty plea to one count of racketeering in exchange for a recommended two-year prison sentence and a $100,000 fine, his statements alone offered no firm basis to indict Harding in the pre-assault conspiracy.
But an interesting tidbit of evidence buried in the 123 pages of statements lent support to Gillooly's claims that Harding was in on the plot from the start. Four days before Gillooly began testifying, a part-time sports journalist, Vera Marano of Pennsylvania, was questioned by investigators. Marano, who says she has been friends with Harding since 1990, testified that she had received several calls from Harding around Christmastime. Harding, she said, asked for two pieces of information about Kerrigan: Where did she train? And did she own property on Cape Cod? Harding explained that she was interested because of a "bet" she had made. Marano said that after tracking down the name of Kerrigan's training facility, she left the information on Harding's answering machine. The next day, she said, Harding called back to ask Marano to clarify her message.