Rooms To Go helps nab suspect
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, September 17, 2001
VERO BEACH, Fla. — VERO BEACH, Fla. — Rooms To Go salesman Ira Greenspon and his manager here helped nab a man initially linked to last week's terrorist attacks, and who now is said to be cooperating with the FBI.
Not only that, Greenspon sold the man a living room package and an add-on chair and ottoman — with fabric protection.
Last Tuesday, after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, Adnan Bukhari — identified later by government authorities as a terrorist suspect — entered the store, walked up to the five-piece Destin Southwest-style living room group and said, "I'll take this," Greenspon recalled.
"I asked him if he wanted the chair and ottoman added to the package, and he said 'yes'. I asked him if he wanted the fabric protection, and he said 'yes'."
The purchase came to $1,941, and Bukhari asked Greenspon to key it in as a tax-exempt sale to be shipped to Saudi Arabia. He paid by Visa, although Greenspon offered the deferred financing package.
According to CNN, Bukhari and his brother Ameer Bukhari, initially were identified as possible hijackers who boarded one of the planes in Boston that later crashed into New York's World Trade Center. The brothers' names had been connected to a car found at an airport in Portland, Maine.
Bukhari's attorney said the brothers' identifications appeared to be stolen and that Adnan Bukhari had no role in the hijackings. He is cooperating with the FBI, the CNN report said.
Bukhari had attended pilot training school in Vero Beach. His brother died in a small plane crash in Florida last year, CNN said.
The day after the attack, Greenspon's sales manager, Bobby Van Ryan, was watching CNN when he saw Bukhari's name on the screen. Greenspon said Van Ryan has a photographic memory. Van Ryan called the store and told an employee to call up all of Greenspon's orders for the day before. Then he called Greenspon.
"We both put on CNN and 10 minutes later there was his picture, (identified) as one of the suicide bombers," Greenspon said. They called the U.S. Justice Department to report that Bukhari had been in the store the day before, but Greenspon declined further comment to Furniture/Today.
Rooms To Go President Jeff Seaman said he was proud of Greenspon. "He did what every good American would do; he recognized somebody and helped out," he said.
Greenspon wouldn't comment on the remarks of Bukhari's attorney, but he did remember Bukhari getting very agitated because the order process was taking too long.
"His closing words were, 'I'm getting out of America. I don't like it here anymore'," Greenspon said.
