After his recently sold, still branded truck showed up in the ISIS Twitter feed, Mark Oberholtzer’s phone has been ringing off the hook with threats against him, his family and his company, according to CNN.
“You know, it hurts my feelings, that anyone could possibly think that we were connected to terrorism in any way,” Oberholtzer told CBS News.
CNN reported Oberholtzer traded his truck in at a Ford dealership in Houston, Texas, for a newer Ford F-250 to replace his old one.
While making the transaction, Oberholtzer began to peel his company branding off the truck but the salesman stopped him saying he would damage the paint, according to CNN.
The salesman assured Oberholtzer the dealership would remove the lettering with their own method before the truck would be resold, CNN continued.
According to CBS News, after the dealership had purchased the truck, they sent it to be auctioned off by a company near Dallas. The truck was then bought by a used car dealer who confirmed to CBS News the Mark-1 plumbing logo was still on the vehicle when they got it.
Mary Morton, a junior studying TESOL education from Utah, said, “I think this whole thing is the [first] dealership’s fault because they said they were going to take the number off the truck but they never did.”
The manager of Maz Auto, the dealership who had the truck after the auction, received a call from a foreign phone number by someone who wanted to buy the truck for use in Turkey. “He wired the money, and he arranged for shipping ... and that was it. The car ended up being shipped to Turkey,” the manager told CBS News.
Ashlin Cushing, an undeclared freshman from Utah, said she feels like the dealership should have looked more in to who they were selling to, to prevent something like this from happening. It isn’t known how the truck made its way from Turkey to Syria, but it is now functioning as a weaponized assault vehicle in the ISIS regime, fitted with a 23mm twin barreled anti-aircraft cannon mounted in the bed.
“I don’t need this press and I don’t need the threats to my family,” said Oberholtzer to ABC News, after he was also questioned by FBI and Homeland Security officials.
Oberholtzer even had to temporarily shut his business down and leave town to wait for the heat to die down after the initial surfacing of the photos, reported CNN.
Even now, a year after ISIS uploaded the photos, Oberholtzer’s company still receives regular phone calls threatening him and questioning if he is an ISIS supporter, CNN continued.
Due to the steep decline of his business and plummeting profits, Oberholtzer has decided to sue the dealership that initially bought his truck for $1 million for failing to remove the decals like they said they would and indirectly causing such negative publicity for his business, according to ABC News.
Michael Morton, a senior studying accounting from Utah said, “I think he deserves the money, but I don’t think he will get that much. I think the court will rule in his favor, but he will be awarded a lesser amount.”