‘Date rape’ drug given to ex-skater

Former Olympic ice dancer Pasha Grishuk was drugged with the so-called date-rape drug GHB during a business meeting at a resort hotel but was able to seek help after spotting a pill in her drink, an Orange County sheriff’s spokesman said Tuesday.

Grishuk, 36, who won two Olympic gold medals for Russia in the 1990s, was at the St. Regis Monarch Beach on April 12 when she began to feel ill and numb, said sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino.

Grishuk was at a meeting with at least one man and first had a drink in a lounge while waiting for a table, Amormino said. They later moved to a table, and when Grishuk began feeling ill she noticed the dissolving pill at the bottom of her red wine, he said.

She pulled the pill out, and an ambulance and sheriff’s deputies were called, he said. Investigating detectives found a similar dissolved pill in her first drink, Amormino said. The skater was taken to a hospital by ambulance and later released.

Amormino said Grishuk described the dinner as a business meeting and indicated she knew the man or men she met with. Amormino declined to release the identity of her dinner companion or companions. He cited the continuing investigation in declining to specify how many people were present.

Toxicology test results that came back Tuesday were positive for GHB. Amormino said detectives had questioned the person or people Grishuk ate with but said they were not currently considered suspects or persons of interest.