SALT LAKE CITY -- Prosecutors opened the trial against two Olympic bid leaders Friday, contending the men waged a sophisticated bribery campaign to help Salt Lake City land the 2002 Winter Games.

The defense said Tom Welch and Dave Johnson did nothing wrong.

Welch and Johnson started by identifying which International Olympic Committee officials would take bribes, then plied them with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gifts, prosecutor John Scott said.

Jean-Claude Ganga, an ousted IOC delegate form the Republic of Congo, took "a jackpot of $322,000" in cash, first-class travel, shopping sprees, and even a Rolex watch, Scott said.

Welch, 59, and Johnson, 44, face 15 felony charges including racketeering and fraud. If convicted, they could get sentences ranging from four to 75 years in prison.

Scott said Welch, who was president of the bid and organizing committees, and Johnson, who was senior vice president, took $130,000 in bundles of cash from an Olympic sponsor, Jet Set Sports, which arranged ticket and travel packages for VIPs attending the Olympic Games.

"We are not going to be able to show you how that cash got used," Scott told the jury. "Use your common sense."

Scott projected charts and diagrams on electronic courtroom screens to track the flow of money from the bid committee to members of the IOC, using icons representing stacks of green cash.

Leading off for the defense, Johnson's attorney Bill Taylor emphasized the bid leaders were part of a larger team of Utah business leaders, politicians, lawyers and doctors who supported or funded the bid campaign or conferred their own gifts on IOC members.

He said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, joined the effort, helping relatives of IOC members obtain visas to work or attend school in the United States.

Taylor said Welch and Johnson and the others realized only after losing the 1998 Winter Olympics to Nagano, Japan, that it would take more than "salt water taffy and jars of honey" to win the loyalties of IOC members.

The government has no evidence Welch or Johnson pocketed the money from Jet Set Sports owner Sead Dizarevich, who insisted on making his contributions in cash to hide it from other bid cities, Taylor said. Welch and Johnson maintain they used the money for bid expenses.

"The evidence will be overwhelming that Tom Welch and Dave Johnson committed no crime -- that it's unfair for them to be here," Taylor said.

The trial comes nearly five years after a single, leaked letter showed the 2002 bid had been greased by scholarships for relatives of IOC delegates. The letter triggered the worst scandal in Olympic history and resulting in the expulsion or resignation of 10 IOC members.

U.S. District Judge David Sam threw out the case in 2001, sparing Salt Lake City the embarrassment of a courtroom spectacle that could have coincided with the games. The charges were restored by a federal appeals court in April.

Among government witnesses will be Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, who is scheduled to be sworn in next week as head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Leavitt is expected to testify that he didn't know about any questionable dealings with IOC delegates.