Douglas B. Spink once mesmerized the business netherworld in Portland, Ore., with contentious high-risk deals and a penchant for death-defying sports.
His pastime of leaping from bridges, cliffs and radio towers “is the absolute extreme self-reliance in my mind,” he once wrote in an e-mail to The Oregonian. “There’s nobody there but you, and if you don’t do everything right you WILL die. No second chances.”
Last week, the Reed College graduate’s luck, in a sense, ran out when federal agents captured him near the Canadian border, allegedly smuggling what federal agents estimate to be more than $34 million of cocaine into Washington.
Spink, who will be 34 next week, finds himself in a federal detention center at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, indicted by a federal grand jury on a charge of possessing more than five kilograms of cocaine with intent to distribute. He faces 10 years to life in prison if convicted.
The arrest is the latest – and most serious – chapter in Spink’s colorful history of penny-stock corporate takeovers, angry creditors and shareholders, fraud judgments, millions of dollars in unpaid debts and a personal bankruptcy still pending three years later, The Oregonian wrote in a copyrighted story.
Spink, the accused drug dealer, forms a picture far removed from Doug Spink, the child of Pennsylvania privilege who attended a private academy, went fox hunting with his father, played squash and rode in elegant horse competitions. He earned an MBA and, like his father, became a mergers-and-acquisitions man, buying and selling companies.
But Spink, who suffers from a mild form of autism known as Asperger syndrome, left a trail of bad blood and lost fortunes – his and others.
And in the past two years, his own emotional world has spiraled downward after the death of his best friend in a skydiving accident.
“He’s owed a lot of people a lot of money,” said Erika Helgesson, Spink’s former executive assistant at defunct Worldmodal Network Services. Helgesson said Spink owes her $30,000 for seven months’ pay.
Spink’s enemies exulted at the news of his arrest.
“That’s wonderful,” said one, Kit Kung, a New Jersey businessman who won a $5.7 million judgment against Spink and his companies in the messy wake of a takeover struggle a few years ago. Kung and his partners never collected the judgment.
Even Spink’s mother, Claire Spink of Harmony, Pa., is a creditor – to the tune of $80,000.
“At least,” she emphasized.
Spink listed her as a creditor when he and his estranged wife, Judy Spink, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2002. Claire Spink said her money went, among other things, to finance Spink’s MBA education at the University of Chicago and to buy expensive horses.
“I’m just stunned and obviously brokenhearted,” said Claire Spink, who noted that she and her son have not talked in four years.
Family, friends in dark
In recent months, Spink’s whereabouts have been a mystery not only to his family, but also to his creditors and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Portland, Ore.
Spink’s father, Jack Spink, said he has spent the past 2 months trying to locate his son, who canceled plans to visit the elder Spink during the year-end holidays.
“I’m completely in the dark,” said Jack Spink, a Pennsylvania businessman who learned of his son’s arrest from a reporter. He and Claire Spink are divorced.
The last time Jack Spink saw his son was in 2003, when he traveled to Calgary, Alberta, to see Douglas compete in an international horse-jumping competition.
Last April, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Randall L. Dunn ordered Matthew Slayton, Douglas Spink’s stepson, to produce documents related to the whereabouts of his stepfather. The public record doesn’t indicate whether Slayton complied, and M. Vivienne Popperl, attorney for the U.S. Trustee’s office in Portland, declined to say.
According to acquaintances, Douglas Spink left Oregon for British Columbia sometime after his bankruptcy, which still is pending in Oregon. In Canada, Spink has devoted himself to breeding the German Holsteiner show-jumping horses he bought while living in Oregon.
Helgesson, Spink’s former assistant, said Spink was in Portland as recently as two weeks ago, visiting Paul R. Peterson, a friend and former business partner.
At the time, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were extremely interested in Spink’s whereabouts.
Agents begin investigation
A month before, in January, U.S. Border Patrol agents had run into Spink in the Loomis National Forest, 10 miles from the Canadian border, along a route known for clandestine narcotics smuggling. Spink “acted very nervous,” according to a deposition by Chad Boucher, an immigration special agent. Spink said he was there for recreation, Boucher testified.
Afterward, federal agents began to track Spink’s various travels in his 1996 Chevrolet Tahoe. He crossed the border from Canada five times in February.
On the evening of Feb. 28, Spink crossed for what turned out to be the last time.
After he came through the Sumas port of entry, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents followed him to Everett. There, he met an unidentified person driving a truck that the agents associated with a known narcotics-smuggling operation.
At 7:40 p.m., the driver of the truck unloaded four large suitcases and one small suitcase. Spink, Boucher said, loaded the suitcases into the back of his sport utility vehicle. He pulled out onto Highway 2, heading east to Monroe.
Alerted by the federal agents, Monroe police stopped Spink for driving 5 mph over the speed limit. A drug-sniffing dog detected the drugs. After obtaining a search warrant, the police found the suitcases.
They were filled with cocaine weighing more than 372 pounds.
For Spink, who remains officially bankrupt, the alleged $34 million drug fortune was short-lived. A federal judge appointed a public defender because Spink could not afford a lawyer.
“We certainly had a happy childhood,” said his mother. “It’s a terrible waste of potential.”
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