I'm sure a court of law in Brazil would think otherwise , and that's all that really matters in this situation. If there was no fabricated robbery story why did each of the swimmers apologize now that they at safely back home? Why do they need to save face if they did nothing wrong but instead were extorted as you claim? Why did their lawyer allow them to pay 11,000 dollars instead of getting them released? Because they broke the laws in a foreign country and they know it.
They apologized for being a distraction which the result of them being drunken morons. I mean here is Feigen's "First and foremost I would like to apologize for the serious distractions from the Olympics, Rio de Janeiro, and Team USA," You notice he never apologized for making anything up, just for being a distraction.
He then goes on to describe the robbery as such "One of my teammates told me that a man with a gun was standing outside the cab. We then got out of the cab and I paid the driver the fare. As I walked away, the man with the gun pointed it at me and my teammate and ordered us, in Portuguese, to sit. This was the first time I have ever had a gun pointed at me and I was terrified. I put my hands up and sat down on the curb. It became apparent that the man with the gun was telling us to pay, and I was unsure if they were affiliated with the gas station. Gunnar Bentz and I gave the man some money. "
And for the record, Feigen is the only one that paid anything (other than at the gas station) and he had no passport as it was taken from him. He absolutely could have waited it out or had his lawyers get him out, but by then he would have been free to go anyway but would have been forced to stay in Brasil for at least a month by a corrupt foreign government. It was thus cheaper for him to just pay the fine and leave then find lodging and other accommodations in Rio for a month.