Santa Ana man sought in drugging of Olympic gold medalist

An arrest warrant was issued Wednesday for James R. Halstead, a 61-year-old insurance salesman who faces one felony count of giving a "narcotic, anesthetic and intoxicating agent" to an unwitting woman identified in the complaint as "Oksana G."

An Orange County Sheriff's Department spokesman confirmed Thursday that the alleged victim was Oksana Grishuk, 36, who won two gold medals for Russia in the 1990s.

On April 12, she told investigators that she had been drugged during a business meeting with a male acquaintance at the St. Regis Monarch Beach hotel in Dana Point. While sipping wine, she noticed a pill at the bottom of her glass and began to feel ill, said Jim Amormino, the sheriff's spokesman.

"She was driven to the hospital by Orange County sheriff's deputies and blood tests were taken," he said, but Halstead left before deputies arrived.

Tests determined that the pill was similar to Rohypnol, commonly used as a date-rape drug, Amormino said.

Halstead, who had not been publicly identified as a suspect before he was charged, remained at large Thursday, Amormino said.

Reached by telephone, Halstead called the complaint "ridiculous" but would not discuss the allegations.

"You've got to be kidding me," he said Thursday. "I've got enough troubles in my life already."

In the early 1990s, Halstead and another man were charged with bilking investors of more than $1 million in a scheme to sell crude oil and German bank shares. He eventually pleaded guilty to five felony counts and was put on probation, court records show. His conviction was reduced to a misdemeanor when he paid $150,000 in restitution.

Halstead later teamed with his defense attorney in that case, Irvine securities lawyer Jeanne M. Rowzee, in a sophisticated investment strategy known as private investment in public equities, or PIPEs.

He and Rowzee took in tens of millions of dollars from scores of individual investors but put none of the money into the PIPEs, according to more than half a dozen civil lawsuits in state and federal courts.