Warrant issued in drugged skater case
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) - May 23, 2008 The two-time Olympic gold medalist said James R. Halstead of
Santa Ana encouraged her to order a drink as they waited for a
dinner table at the posh St. Regis Monarch Beach Hotel in Orange
County on April 12. He then encouraged her to finish it, she said,
but she only took a few sips before the two moved to the dining
room.
Halstead, 61, of Santa Ana, was charged Wednesday with one
felony count of administering a drug to Grishuk with the intent of
having sex with her. He remained at large Friday. A message left at
his home was not immediately returned.
Grishuk told a news conference that after she sipped a bit of
the first drink she ordered a glass of red wine with dinner. When
she began to feel ill, she said, she noticed the wine had become a
cloudy white color and there was a partially dissolved pill in her
glass.
"I felt like I can't trust anybody at that moment," said
Grishuk, 36. "I wasn't sure what is it. Am I going to die?"
She said she left the table with the pill and contacted hotel
security. She was hospitalized for five hours.
The next day, Grishuk said, she called Halstead as authorities
listened in. He said he had taken the potency pill Viagra while he
was in the restroom that night, she recalled.
"Putting all this together, there's no other thing he could
have been thinking" other than having sex with her, Grishuk told
reporters.
Grishuk had known Halstead, an insurance salesman, for two years
but was not romantically involved with him, said Orange County
sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino. The pair met to discuss starting
a clothing and vitamin line, Amormino said.
Grishuk won gold medals for Russia in ice dancing in 1994 and
1998.
Deputies initially said Grishuk's drinks had been spiked with
the date-rape drug GHB. On Friday, Amormino said the drug was
Nimetazepam, which is similar to GHB but usually found in Asia and
Europe.