SALT LAKE CITY -- The government's bribery case against two Salt Lake City Olympic bid executives suffered a setback Wednesday when a judge threw out what prosecutors considered their strongest piece of evidence.

U.S. District Judge David Sam excluded the 28-page "geld file," a gossipy dossier of International Olympic Committee delegates that listed their personal and family needs and standing in the organization that awarded Utah the 2002 Winter Games.

The vote-buying scandal, the worst in Olympic history, resulted in the expulsion or resignations of 10 IOC members and led to 15 felony charges against bid chief Tom Welch and deputy Dave Johnson.

A finance director testified he delivered $15,000 in cash to an IOC delegate from Cameroon for travel expenses, even though the delegate never paid for his trip to Salt Lake City.

"He just said, 'Thank you,' '' Rod Hamson testified about the payment he delivered in 1994 to Rene Essomba's hotel room.

Hamson spent six hours on the stand describing checks he wrote out for IOC members at the request of Welch that often were written without vouchers or receipts.

Earlier, Sam said the authenticity of the geld file and other documents was in doubt. Prosecutors couldn't show who created or modified the documents or whether Welch or Johnson, who are now on trial, ever saw them.

Paul Newey, who managed computer services for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, testified the document turned up on discarded computer disks found in a storage room, inside boxes that contained old computer parts and discarded software. Newey gave a copy of the disks to committee lawyers who gave them to federal prosecutors under a broad subpoena for bid records.

Geld, German for money, appears without explanation next to the names of eight IOC members. Prosecutors have said they know what the bid executives had in mind by "geld." Six of the eight members received large sums of cash.

Johnson's attorney, Max Wheeler, has said "geld" was a term used by Johnson as a young Mormon church missionary in Belgium to mean golden or potential converts. Wheeler dismissed the file as "a lot of innuendo."

The file figured prominently in an indictment alleging Welch, who was president of the bid and organizing committee, and Johnson, who was senior vice president, "prepared a plan outlining the personal benefits to offer IOC members" for their votes to give the 2002 games to Salt Lake City.

An entry for expelled Finnish IOC member Pirjo Haeggman noted "Husband needs a job." Her former spouse got $30,000 from the Salt Lake bid committee for a study of forestry practices. Another entry said of Francis Nyangwesco of Uganda: "son 17 needs a future, equipment, geld."

If convicted on all counts, Welch, 59, and Johnson, 44, could get four to 75 years in prison. A federal grand jury indicted them more than three years ago on five counts of bribery racketeering, another five of mail, wire and "honest-services" fraud, four of violating the Travel Act and a single count of conspiracy.