What a Week
A Series of
Unfortunate Events at the Sheraton Result in Two Arrests and Two
Suicides Within Days
“We were, of course, unaware that this was happening.”
Jhon
Luna.
By Omar
Sommereyns
Over the course
of only a few days last week, two arrests — one involving a
valet attendant who was selling drugs to hotel guests — and two
suicides occurred at the Sheraton Bal Harbour Beach Resort at
9701 Collins Ave.
All the
incidents were unrelated, according to the Bal Harbour Police
Department.
On Tuesday,
Jan. 23, 30-year-old Jhon C. Luna, who was working as a valet at
the Sheraton, was arrested for cocaine possession with intent to
distribute (6.6 grams) as well as marijuana possession (18.4
grams).
“We got a tip
about that particular valet, so we inserted an undercover
officer to purchase some of the drugs and that was it —
basically Narcotics 101,” said Captain Greg Roye of the criminal
investigations unit at the Bal Harbour Police Department.
As stated in
the police report, “[Luna] was contacted and asked if he had any
cocaine or marijuana. [Luna] stated that he would arrange the
sale of ‘white stuff, not the green.’ [He] made contact shortly
after and advised that the ‘white’ was left in the cup tray
inside of a black Mercedes SUV and that we owed him $200. Three
small packets were found in the cup holder containing a white
powdery substance.”
K.C. Kavanagh,
spokesperson for Sheraton, said the hotel has been cooperating
with the police on the case and Luna’s employment has been
terminated.
“We were, of
course, unaware that this was happening,” she added.
William
Popich.
On that same
day, cops also busted a hotel guest, William M. Popich, 29, who
had a felony warrant for his arrest in Columbus, Ohio. The
warrant, issued on Jan. 19, was for failure to appear in court
for a larceny case.
“With that guy,
one of our officers was approached by someone who came down here
from Ohio with him and had just found out about his background,
how he had a warrant out for his arrest,” Roye told the
SunPost. “He was going to start a business with him down
here or something, but then he didn’t want to after he looked
into it. So we verified the info and then nabbed the guy.
“He had a huge
amount of cash,” Roye said of Popich. “$75,000.”
Popich also had
a lot of tattoos. Among the designs on Popich’s six-foot-tall,
195-pound-body described in the arrest report are a “demon woman
on [right] shoulder, poker cards and flames on left shoulder,
dragon on right calf, sleeping baby on right chest, baby angel
on [left] chest.”
The next day,
Jan. 24, a man named Joseph A. Dixon, age 40, leaped to his
death off the 15th floor of the hotel.
According to
the report, police received an “anonymous call about a [man]
sitting on the balcony railing, 15th floor, of the
north side tower of the Sheraton. … We responded to the 15th
floor stairwell entrance. We approached the door and looked out
through the portal window and observed the victim sitting on the
balcony railing. Before we could open the door, the victim
leaned forward and jumped/fell off the railing. The victim fell
15 floors and landed on the tennis court of the Balmoral condo
(9801 Collins Ave.) approximately 20 feet from the Sheraton
property.”
Another suicide
took place a couple of days later, on Jan. 26. The victim, whose
name the police are not releasing because he was only 17 years
old, also jumped off one of the hotel balconies. Captain Roye
insists both incidents are merely coincidences.
A witness, Jim
Abbate, saw the second victim falling between the seventh
and eighth floors but could not pinpoint which floor he had
originally jumped from.
Regarding the
suicides, Sheraton’s Kavanagh offered, “We were deeply saddened
by the tragic events of last week. But we have worked with the
police on their investigation and did what we could to support
the families of the victims and their associates.”
Finally, on
Saturday, Jan. 27, a fire broke out in one of the hotel rooms.
The blaze was fairly minor but is being investigated by the
Miami-Dade Police Department, Roye said.
--Erik
Bojnansky contributed to this report.
Comments?
E-mail
omar@miamisunpost.com.
