‘Am I going to die?’: Ontario man back home after 71-day legal ordeal in Dominican Republic

After more than two months stuck in the Dominican Republic, David Bennett is finally back home in Ontario.

Although he is now physically free, he is still emotionally recovering from what he describes as a harrowing ordeal.

The 57-year-old was arrested on March 7 in Punta Cana after he and his wife, Jane Wilcox, say they were shown a yellow bag they didn’t recognize. The bag was labelled “Davi Bennett,” differing from his legal name David R. Bennett.

However, that similarity was enough for him to get flagged by authorities and held back at the airport for interrogation.

That moment marked the start of a weeks-long legal and bureaucratic nightmare for the couple.

“We just knew that we are under arrest for drug importation allegation,” he said, about himself and another couple.

Bennett said he knew from the moment he was detained that the situation would not be resolved quickly.

“I just knew I wasn’t going home that day,” he told Global News. “I wasn’t prepared to stay there one day longer than I had to.”

Bennett described the initial transport to a holding compound as terrifying.

He explained how he and four others were crammed in a vehicle going at high speeds with no seat belts on.

“We were crammed and handcuffed to one another, exceeding speeds of 130 kilometers an hour.” He recalled thinking “am I going to die?”

While at the compound, Bennett said a translator told him, ‘you guys are in a lot of trouble here…you tried to smuggle drugs into our country, and we don’t appreciate that.’

After about an hour, he said that he and the others were taken back to the airport and left sitting in a parked vehicle with the windows cracked slightly open — and no air conditioning — for more than an hour.

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“We started yelling that we couldn’t breathe,” he said. Eventually, the officers returned, started the engine, and let the air conditioning run.

Bennett also said they were never formally fed during that whole process — only given two small Halloween-sized bags of chips to share among three people, along with bottles of water. He recalled that one of the chip bags was too spicy to eat.

Later that night, Bennett recalled being transferred to a jail cell.

“The male cell was about 14 feet by maybe 20 feet- when morning broke there was, I think 15 of us in this cell … it had an open washroom that was disgusting,” he said. “There was no way I could sleep. I sat in an upright position for eight or nine hours, just waiting for someone to sort this out.”

The following day he briefly met with a lawyer before being taken back to that initial compound, he said, where he was questioned and fingerprinted.

That night, he said, he was taken to another jail facility where he would spend the next 48 hours or so.

One of the inmates, he recalled, told him, ‘You’re in the best cell here. You’re in Iglesia, which is church, because this is the safest cell in the compound.’ They said, ‘if you were next door in Inferno, you’d be in big trouble.'”

After a brief court appearance, Bennett said he learned the charges against would not be dropped but his wife was posting bail.

He could not leave Dominican as authorities would be pursing an investigation.

Back at home, Wilcox worked with a legal team around the clock to have the charges against Bennett dismissed. She also said the couple had great support from their friends and community.

It took five weeks for the charges to be dropped, and then another five before he was finally allowed to leave the country.

“I had this black cloud over my head the entire time I was there,” Bennett said.

Wilcox said the delays were a result of slow administrative processes and what their lawyer described to Global News as limited Canadian government intervention.

On Friday night, Bennett finally landed back in Toronto. He estimates the entire ordeal cost more than $80,000.

“I didn’t sleep well through this,” Bennett said. “I’ve always been a really sound sleeper. Sleep became a form of prison. Every time I went to bed, I dreaded the night because I knew I would wake up.”

Wilcox spent hours daily supporting her husband virtually and said the emotional toll was immense.

“We spent hours on FaceTime the last couple of weeks, hours and hours just trying to get through it together,” she said.

Bennett said the whole experience also affected his sleep schedule. “I still feel fatigued every day by like mid to late day. That was trauma,” he said.

What was expected to be a misunderstanding quickly turned into a protracted and distressing legal standoff. Wilcox said she believed authorities would quickly realize they had the wrong person.

“I was expecting they would figure out they got the wrong guy quickly,” she said. “The communication was just horrible from the government. It was a series of misinformation.”

The couple lobbied Canadian government officials to intervene and help.

“Nobody talked to each other in ways that made sense,” said Wilcox. “We asked them to communicate with our lawyer here, because that’s where all the heavy lifting was happening, that’s where the investigation, all the evidence gathering was happening.”

Bennet and his wife wish more was done to bring him home sooner.

“I love this country. I’ve lived here my entire life, 57 years. You’ve got to do more for Canadians,” said Bennett. “There were times when I felt that I was on my own, where nobody was really truly fighting for me.”

The couple is now focused on recovering and healing. They say no one should be left in legal limbo abroad, especially after charges are dropped.