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L.A. TIMES SANTA ANA, CALIF. A Santa Ana man accused in civil lawsuits of defrauding investors of $20 million now faces a criminal charge of drugging a former Olympic figure skater in a foiled attempt to sexually assault her, according to a complaint filed by the Orange County district attorney's office.
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."  In this photo provided by the Orange County Police, James R. Halstead,is seen in this undated photo, during a press conference on Friday, May 23, 200 - 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.
Plaintiffs in those cases said Halstead spent their money on a wildly lavish lifestyle that included two 8,000-square-foot homes near Las Vegas, which together cost more than $9 million. Investors said he used the homes to throw parties to entice them into the scam.
He also had a motor pool of luxury sports cars, including a $368,000 Porsche Carrera GT, according to sales records, and tooled around Vegas in a chauffeur-driven limo.
Halstead denies wrongdoing in the alleged investment scheme and says he, too, was defrauded -- by Rowzee.
Federal prosecutors charged her this week with defrauding about 150 investors of at least $20 million and diverting the money to herself and others. A federal magistrate ordered her held without bond Wednesday after prosecutors said she was a flight risk.
She is to be arraigned on wire fraud charges in June.
The complaint names others, including Halstead, as having worked with Rowzee. But only she has been charged.
ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA | Professional figure skater Oksana Grishuk tells her story on being slipped a date rape drug near a photo of the suspect at the Orange County Sheriff's Headquarters in Santa Ana on Friday. CHRISTINA HOUSE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER |  |
Oksana Grishuk, 36, an Olympic gold-medal skater from Aliso Viejo believed a business dinner with an aquaintance last month at the St. Regis Monarch Beach resort was for all the right reasons. Instead, she found her head swirling, her stomach aching and wondering "Am I going to die?" Grishuk, a two-time Olympic gold medalist for Russia in ice dancing, had been drugged with Nimetazepam, a date rape drug, on April 12 during a meeting at the resort. Grishuk was at the hotel to meet with James R. Halstead, 61, of Santa Ana, whom she had known for a couple of years and had grown comfortable with, said Sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino, but the relationship was strictly business. The District Attorney's office has issued an arrest warrant for Halstead, in connection with the alleged drugging. Halstead is suspected by police of trying to drug the skater with the intent to sexually assault her, the complaint states. Authorities also want Halstead to submit DNA, thumb and palm prints, according to the felony complaint. At a news conference this morning at the Orange County Sheriff's Department she gave her account of what happened during the meeting, which took on a personal tone at the dinner table after she had sipped her first drink at the insistence of Halstead at a bar before heading into a restaurant. Grishuk said she met Halstead to discuss starting a vitamin nutrition product line and had met with him several times previously and had come to trust him as a business professional. Halstead, she said, tried to insist she finish her first iced beverage, which she would not describe. She ended up taking that drink to the dinner table, when she said Halstead left to go to the restroom. In a telephone conversation she had with him at the urging of sheriff's officials the next day, she said Halstead told her he had taken Viagra in the bathroom. When he returned about 10-15 minutes later, Grishuk said she had already ordered a glass of wine to go with her meal. At this point, she said the tone of the conversation changed from business to personal and she started feeling awkward and looking away at times. Grishuk said she never actually saw Halstead put a pill in her drink, but insisted that no one else approached them since the drink was poured by the waitress. She soon started to feel shaky and having a burning pain, she said putting her hand on her chest, and discovered her wine cup was cloudy at the bottom. At first she thought it was a food particle and she finished her wine and turning her glass upside down discovered a still undissolved pill, she said. "I was absolutely shocked," she said, "I just said 'wow, there's a pill in my glass.' " Grishuk said Halstead reacted very calmly and told her to get rid of it. But as she started to feel ill, he took off, she said. "I wasn't sure what it (was). 'Am I going to die?' " she found herself thinking. It was hotel staff that helped her get medical attention and sheriff's officials helped get her to a hospital, from which she was released five hours later, she said. Authorities discovered the drug in a glass of wine that Grishuk was having during dinner and found traces of the drug in a glass she used in the resort's lounge, Amormino said. The drug was tested and found to be a common date rape drug used in Europe and Asia, but illegal there and in the United States, authorities said. Halstead, who is now considered a fugitive, had not been arrested as of midafternoon today. Halstead was also named in an FBI affidavit along with Robert Harvey as partners who collected investors’ money on behalf of Jeanne Rowzee, 49, an Irvine lawyer arrested on suspicion of bilking 150 investors out of $20 million. She is being held without bail because a judge has deemed her a flight risk. Rowzee, 49, was arrested at her Irvine home in connection with the scheme, which the FBI said solicited investments in money market programs and offerings known as public investments in private entities, or PIPES. Halstead netted $11 million in 2006 from the scheme, money he spent on two Ferraris, a Porsche, an Aston Martin, credit card bills at Neiman Marcus and a girlfriend in Las Vegas, according to a civil suit filed against Rowzee by William Buus, an Irvine lawyer who represents 45 clients who had sued Rowzee and her business partners. Marc Halliburton, a Newport Beach mortgage banker, said that Halstead enticed him to invest $275,000 of his own money and nearly $3 million from Halliburton’s friends and family. “We’d give Jim money and he was supposed to forward it to Rowzee, who was supposed to be this big securities attorney,” Halliburton said. “It was very clear he never forwarded it.” Halstead’s attorney in the civil suit, David Casterline, said, “My client’s position is he’s a victim of Rowzee like everybody else.” The crime of wire fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. Rowzee is also under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for investment fraud, the FBI affidavit said.
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