I talked drug-fuelled Ben Dunne down from hotel balcony, says ...
A new RTE documentary recalls Dunnes extraordinary life
THE police officer who tried to stop drug-fuelled Ben Dunne from taking his own life at a Florida hotel has recalled the dramatic scene.
The former supermarket tycoon was in the US on a golf trip with friends in February 1992 when the incident occurred.
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He was staying at the Hyatt Grand Cypress Hotel and hired local escort, Denise Wojcik, then 22, from an agency.
They drank champagne and snorted cocaine together, with a new RTE documentary into his life recalling how they even did the drug in the bath together.
CHAOTIC SCENEDunne used his K Club membership card to slice up the coke.
The problems arose when he couldn’t open his safe in the hotel and became paranoid.
He told security to call the police and he stood on the balcony threatening to jump.
Stan Spanich was a deputy sheriff with the Orange County Police at the time and got called out about a ‘possible suicide,’ with a ‘man on the ledge’ of the hotel.
When he arrived, it was a chaotic scene.
Stan recalled: “He was a big man. Looking at him, it was fear, it was terror that I haven’t seen. He was frothing at the mouth.”
He told Ben they could help but were told not to come any closer or he would jump.
'I GOT NERVOUS'He continued: “I got nervous, because he was a big man and when we started talking, all of a sudden he got agitated again and said, ‘I’m just going to jump, I’m going to take you with me.’
“And I’m like, ‘You don’t want to do that, I’ve got kids, I’ve got young kids.’ He said, ‘I’ll give you $100,000 to get me out of this.’”
Stan said he told him he didn’t want his money and just wanted to help him.
He managed to get Ben talking, who admitted he had been kidnapped before.
He talked Ben off the ledge in time to get other officers to pin him down.
But as he was in such a state of agitation and was lashing out, they ended up hogtying him to get him out of the hotel.
His legacy I hope is around the Dunnes Stores name and the impact that company has in Ireland which is generally good.'
Joe DuffyRTE presenter
He was arrested with 32 grams of cocaine in the room, which was enough to count as drug trafficking, but eventually was fined just $5,000 and the trafficking charges were dropped.
The RTE documentary looks at the rollercoaster of Dunne’s life, from taking over the family supermarket, to being kidnapped by the IRA while on the way to Newry to open a new store.
He was held for six days in 1981 by the group, who eventually were paid a ransom to free him.
Former Minister Alan Dukes said the Government had told the family not to pay a fee and they were intercepted a number of times trying to pay off the kidnappers.
He said: “The Provisional IRA was regarded as a very serious threat to the State.
“There had been a standing policy of the Government that no ransom will be paid in any case.”
CONTROVERSIAL PAYMENTSHe added: “We wanted to avoid a killing as an outcome. I’d have to say that the blood on the hands would be on the hands of the kidnappers first.”
The show also looks at Dunne’s controversial payments to politicians like Charlie Huaghey and Michael Lowry and the tribunals held into these payments, as well as his family feud over the supermarket, and his rise as a businessman again.
RTE presenter Joe Duffy appears in the documentary having interviewed Dunne several times and held him to account on his Liveline show.
And he said the business mogul, who died last year while on holiday in Dubai, always managed to win the public over.
Joe said: “The perception of Ben Dunne by the ordinary decent people was much better than the perception by the media bubble.
"His legacy I hope is around the Dunnes Stores name and the impact that company has in Ireland which is generally good.”
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