On Christmas Eve 1990, life’s precarious nature revealed itself to me in ways I never expected. As the former CFO of Crazy Eddie who had recently agreed to cooperate with federal authorities, I was already living through a period of profound change. Yet nothing could have prepared me for how events would unfold that evening at my brother’s furniture store on Coney Island Avenue.
I had been helping out at Crawford’s Furniture Store, a routine gesture that seemed unremarkable at the time. The store was quiet that evening – just me, an employee named Ernie, a female employee, and a young couple shopping with their infant in a stroller. The peaceful scene was about to shatter.
A Sense of Danger
Two men entered the store, their demeanor immediately setting off internal alarms. After a brief look around, they left, but something about them felt wrong. I mentioned my suspicions to Ernie, a gut feeling that would prove prophetic just thirty minutes later.
The Nightmare Begins
When they returned, everything changed in an instant. One of them pulled a gun on Ernie, leading him toward me. I can still hear Ernie’s words: “Remember those two guys you thought were suspicious? They’re back!” Before I could fully process the situation, I felt cold steel against my temple.
As a cooperating witness in what would become one of the largest fraud cases in history, my mind raced to dark places. Was this really a random robbery, or something more sinister? The gunman grew increasingly agitated as I explained we didn’t keep cash in a furniture store – most customers paid by check or credit card. His response was to shove the gun into my mouth, the threat of death no longer abstract but terrifyingly immediate.
In that moment, my thoughts scattered in a thousand directions. I thought about the physics of deflecting a bullet, about what happens after death, about my wife and three young children. As a man who had built my early career on calculating numbers and orchestrating fraud, I found myself calculating the odds of survival.
The situation deteriorated when they demanded the keys to the front door and announced their intention to move everyone to the basement. Basements are where things disappear. Just as hope seemed to be fading, Thomas Hann walked in.
An Unlikely Hero
Hann, another member of our Jewish community, had simply stopped by to visit Ernie on his way to the gun range. He never wanted to be in this situation – he was just a regular person making a routine visit. But when confronted with our dire circumstances, he was compelled to act. This wasn’t a choice he wanted to make, but one he had to make to save our lives. His reluctant but necessary intervention would change everything.
When the second robber spotted him, gunfire erupted. Hann’s first shot was devastatingly accurate, dropping one robber instantly. The other gunman fired back, his bullets piercing Hann’s sports jacket but somehow missing him. Hann’s return fire struck the second robber in the neck and leg.
Moments of Shock
In the immediate aftermath, while I ran to get help, everyone else in the store, including Hann, remained frozen in a state of shock. The events had unfolded so rapidly – mere seconds of gunfire that changed everything – that their minds simply couldn’t process what had just happened. When the police arrived, they found a scene of stunned silence. This wasn’t a hardened vigilante who had just acted, but a regular person forced into extraordinary action, now trying to comprehend what he had just done. The human mind isn’t designed to process such intense, life-or-death situations in real-time, and everyone in that store – from Hann who had just saved our lives, to the others who had been moments away from being led to the basement – was struggling to make sense of what had just transpired.
As others stood frozen in shock, I ran to the nearby Jewish bookstore, calling for help. The Hatzolah ambulance service arrived quickly enough to save the wounded robber’s life – another life turned on a dime that evening.
The aftermath brought its own complications. The FBI investigated thoroughly, particularly disturbed by the fact that the robber who had held the gun to my head knew my first name – whether he had overheard it or knew it beforehand was unclear. This detail, combined with my status as their star witness in the upcoming Crazy Eddie trial, raised serious concerns that this might have been more than just a random robbery. I testified before the grand jury that was convened to examine Hann’s actions, but interestingly, I never followed up on what happened to the wounded robber who survived. Perhaps it was because I was so focused on my cooperation with federal authorities in the Crazy Eddie case, or maybe it was just a subconscious desire to move forward. The grand jury would ultimately decline to charge Hann, recognizing his actions had saved multiple lives.
Life Lessons
That evening taught me something profound about life’s uncertainties. As someone who had built a career manipulating numbers and probabilities in the Crazy Eddie fraud, I found myself confronting the ultimate probability – survival. One moment I was helping at my brother’s store, the next moment staring death in the face, and then suddenly saved by a chance visit from a man on his way to target practice.
We often take our current status for granted, whether it’s success, freedom, or simply being alive. Yet as I learned that Christmas Eve, life’s fortunes – both good and bad – can turn on a dime. Sometimes those turns come from our own choices, like my decision to cooperate with federal authorities. Other times they come from pure chance, like Hann walking into that store at precisely the right moment.
The weight of a gun in your mouth has a way of clarifying what matters. In the years since, I’ve carried that clarity with me – a reminder that each moment we have is both precious and precarious, and that survival sometimes depends on the random kindness of others who step up when everything is on the line.
Written by Sam Antar
© 2024 Sam Antar. All rights reserved.