DISCOVERY BAY — A man at the center of Snohomish County’s largest cocaine bust is back behind bars, once again suspected of misconduct involving animals.
Douglas B. Spink, 42, once was a wealthy entrepreneur in Oregon. He was back in the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac after being arrested March 4 by a team of U.S. marshals, federal probation officers and four Jefferson County deputies.
Spink, who already was awaiting trial on felony animal cruelty charges linked to bestiality, now is suspected in the presumed theft of a dog reported missing from a property south of Discovery Bay.
Spink pleaded guilty in 2005 to smuggling 372 pounds of cocaine through Monroe. In 2010, he made headlines after being arrested in connection with bestiality at a farm he owned near Sumas in Whatcom County.
Spink has since relocated to a home along Chicken Coop Road near the Clallam/Jefferson County line, said Deputy Alex Mintz, animal control officer with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
Mintz said he now suspects Spink took a 5-year-old Kangal Boerboel mixed dog named Ghengis who disappeared from a man’s yard south of Discovery Bay.
“(Spink is) my only suspect,” Mintz said Saturday.
“It’s pretty much circumstantial, but he’s the only person in the area that would have motive to do it. Also, he had the opportunity.”
Spink was arrested earlier this month for investigation of violating the terms of his parole in the cocaine smuggling case. He reportedly had a 1½-year-old Caucasian mountain dog named Bacca with him.
Spink was wearing the dog’s collar when he came to the door, Mintz said.
Bacca is now in the hands of the Whatcom County Humane Society, Mintz said, where he’s in good health after being treated for an ear infection and a case of weepy eye.
“Apparently, he’s doing really well,” Mintz said.
Spink was arrested in 2010 at the Sumas property after police found a video camera with footage showing Spink standing by during acts of bestiality with dogs.
Spink served two years in federal custody for violating his parole by being around criminal activity and was released in late 2012, Mintz said. That same year he was charged with three counts of first-degree animal cruelty in Whatcom county Superior Court. Trial in that case had been scheduled for March 24.
Mintz said he fears Ghengis may have been abducted into a secretive world of animal sex trafficking, based on his research into Spink’s connections with the bestiality lifestyle in Washington state.
“There’s quite a network,” Mintz said.
Spink’s latest arrest started with his Feb. 23 report about harassment about the missing dog. The dog’s owner said he found a hole cut in the fence separating his property from the farm’s driveway, Mintz said.
Avery interviewed the farm’s owners, who said they did not know anything about Ghengis going missing, and was given Spink’s phone number because he had been staying in a trailer on the property, Mintz said.
The farm’s owners told Avery that Spink had moved from the trailer in the late hours of Feb. 21, Mintz said.
Avery called Spink, who told the deputy he did not take Ghengis.
“Mr. Spink said, ‘I already have a large dog and wouldn’t be able to take another,’” Mintz said.
Spink is expected in U.S. District Court for a March 27 hearing concerning his most recent alleged parole violation, Mintz said.
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