Bashir Kouchacji

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Basir cusack G thought he was living the American dream
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when he opened his second restaurant in Washington, d C.
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But before the pain on the walls was dry, his
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dream turned into a nightmare. Over the course of a decade,
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thousands of threatening phone calls were made to his restaurant,
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inciting a paranoia that would send him past the brink
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of insanity. Chapter one the call. While no one quite
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remembers the exact day of the first call, between nineteen
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eighty three and nineteen ninety three, the Marrakesh Restaurant in Washington,
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D C. Received there were seven thousand harassing phone calls
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from a mysterious individual the staff named Latin font though
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featured on Unsolved Mysteries and investigated by the FBI, law
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in font was never identified, but the comprehensive harassment campaign
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launched against the restaurant and its owner sent to cher
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U sagg over the mental precipice. Though not a killer
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communication in the way we normally describe, the calls destroyed
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Bashir's career, shattered his personal relationships, and made him so
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paranoid he's no longer mentally functional in society. Proof that
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one does not necessarily have to physically die to lose
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their life. But how did a successful restaurant owner become
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a deranged shell of his former self from a mere
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set of phone calls? To understand, we have to go
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back to the nineteen seventies, Chapter two, A strange kidnapping.
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In the early nineteen seventies, Bashir cusack g, an American
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raised in Lebanon, had emigrated to the United States and
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married an American singer named Gail. Though Bashir had become
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an American citizen and worked in the US in the
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late nineteen sixties, by the nineteen seventies, the pair had
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moved back to Bashir's home country of Lebanon, where Bashir
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worked as an entertainment writer and Gail sang at the
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Acclaim Phoenicia Bay Route Hotel, a well known singer at
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her time, gal was often asked to perform for Lebanese diplomats,
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Saudi royalty, and other prominent figures. Bashir sometimes accompanied his
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wife to these events, and through the cocktail parties, balls,
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and political celebrations, he got to meet and talk to
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many important people in the Lebanese political scene. Now it's
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important to note that Basher himself was not part of
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any of the politics, nor was he interested in them.
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He was just at these parties to support his wife.
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But unbeknownst to him, it wasn't just diplomats who showed
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up regularly to the Phoenicia. Arms dealers were often there
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as well, making backroom deals and doing other illegal activity
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related to the years of political unrest surrounding be Root
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at the time. And while Basher may have had no
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interactions that he felt were untoured, there's a chance he
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had perhaps seen something or talked to someone he wasn't
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supposed to at one of these parties. That's because on
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July first, nineteen seventy four, Basher was kidnapped by members
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of the Palestine Liberation Organization or the PLO. Basher was
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supposed to pick gall up from a private party that
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night after she'd finished a performance for a Saudi princess,
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But after waiting for several hours at her not appearing,
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Basher thought that perhaps he'd got in the homes address
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wrong tried to turn back onto the street. Remember this
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was a time before cell phones. There was no way
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for Bashir to have contacted Gal to find out where
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she was. But Bashir found his way barred by another
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vehicle As several men approached his car with machine guns.
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He was forcibly removed from his Mercedes, had a bag
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shoved over his head, and was tossed in the back
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of another vehicle, who took him from the scene. When
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the bag was removed, Bashir found himself in a Palestinian
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refugee camp, where his captors threw him into a windowless
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basement cell with nothing but a blanket and an overhead
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light bulb. Over the next five days, Bashir would be
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forcibly deprived of sleep, violently interrogated, and beaten regularly every
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two hours, though he never knew what it was his
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captors really wanted. Aside from the fact that they seemed
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to think that he was an agent for the CIA.
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In the short spans in which he wasn't being beaten
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or interrogated, Bashir could hear the cries and screams of
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other captives being held in other cells, and due to
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the sleep deprivation and other torture techniques, Basher began hallucinating
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that his family was also in the basement, screaming and
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crying along with the other prisoners. He could no longer
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take the torture and broke a plastic bull that had
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been left in his cell, using it to slid open
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his wrist. Now, this is where the story takes a
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stranger turn, and unfortunately there's little to no documentation to
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support this, but based on interviews Bashir did later, this
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is what we can surmise by his account. When his
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captors were turned on that fifth day, they found Bashir
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bleeding profusely from the wrist, and instead of leaving him
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to die, they took him to a local hospital. There
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are two opposing accounts of what happens after this. In one,
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Basher is able to find an escape route out of
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the hospital and simply goes back to his life. In
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another Bashir convinced the nursing staff to let him call
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his family back in the US and getting ahold of
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his mother and explaining what happened to him. His mother
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contacted the US embassy in Lebanon and they were able
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to negotiate a release. As there were State Department records
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and reference to Basher's case, we can surmise that the
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negotiation for his release is the most probable in this scenario.
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Either way, what we know for certain is that two
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months after Bashir's escape or release, he and Gale moved
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to Los Angeles, where Bashir took a job as the
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manager of the famous Dharmagray restaurant. Move a new job
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and not heal Basher from his horrific experiences. In later interviews,
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Basher would say that if he'd got in himself some
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therapy immediately following the kidnapping, he'd probably have been better
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able to process what happened to him. But as it
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was the seventies and therapy wasn't socially prevalent, Basher suffered
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from intense psychological trauma that included terrible mood swings, intense
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distrust of strangers, especially those who looked Arab, and consistent
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paranoia that someone was out to get him. Basher even
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told the La Times that he was suspicious of his
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own wife. This wasn't helped by the fact that when
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he questioned Gal about where she'd been the night of
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his abduction, she never gave him a straight answer. The
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vagueness in the high levels of paranoia Bisher was experiencing
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after his kidnapping led the couple to divorce soon after
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settling in La Chapter three, The Beginning of Recovery. Though
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his work that the Dharmagrab restaurant was very successful and
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he met and served many celebrities, Basher still suffered from
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paranoid episodes and decided that moving to the East Coast
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to be closer to his family would help him, and
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this did seem to offer him some healing, as After
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working as his restaurant manager for one of the casinos
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in Atlantic City, Bashier and his sister Vivian decided they
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wanted to open their own restaurant. In nineteen seventy seven,
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they created the Marrakech Moroccan Restaurant in Philadelphia. It was
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a huge hit and quickly became very popular, especially since
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Philadelphia had a sizeable Middle Eastern demographic at the time,
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and Basher felt the restaurant was a way to get
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back in touch with his countrymen and feel less fearful
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than paranoid. But in the back of Basher's mind, he
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still felt a strange guilt surrounding his kidnapping. He still
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thought that others, especially in Middle Eastern diplomats, saw him
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as some kind of trader, and in the early nineteen
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eighties he saw an opportunity that he thought would help
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him feel like he was clearing his name. In nineteen
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eighty two, Basher and Vivian decided to expand Marrakesh by
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opening a second location in Washington, d C. It was
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a trendy, upcoming area and there were many Arab diplomats
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living in DC at that time that Bashir hoped to
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track to his restaurant as a way to prove he'd
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not been a political problem all those years ago. Reconstruction
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of the DC restaurant space began in nineteen eighty three,
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and everything seemed to be going in Basher's favor until
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he had a phone line installed. Chapter four, The Rise
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of Latin font Only a few days after the new
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phone line was hooked up. The still under construction Marrakesh
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began receiving multiple phone calls each hour whenever Bashir was
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down from Philadelphia to oversee the project. But anytime he
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picked up the phone, there was no one on the line.
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It was just dead airspace. Wondering who could have got
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in the phone number for a restaurant not even open
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to the public yet, Basher installed an answering machine on
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the phone, and what it recorded was extremely unsettling. There
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was no one talking, but there were strange tist noises
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over bizarre, high pitched laughter. It was unsettling, but at
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the time Bashir disfigured it was a prank. But the
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calls escalated once the Marrakesh opened its doors to diners,
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and the laughter was replaced by threats of violence spoken
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in the voice of young boy. No one was immune
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to this caller's anger, as he spewed profanities and murder
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threats at whoever happened to pick up the phone. But
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staff and Basher himself noticed quickly that the calls were
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far more frequent when Basher was in the building. The
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unknown callerhood phone upwards of ten to fifteen times a day,
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which was not only upsetting for the staff members, who
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were violently threatened whenever they answered the phone, but these
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prank calls also held up the restaurant's phone, preventing them
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from taking legitimate calls from patrons. After a few weeks
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of the relentless harassment, the staff began to refer to
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the violent coller as la Fonte. This name could have
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been chosen for a couple reasons. The first and most
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agreed upon is that la Enfont got his name because
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it means child in French and the caller sounded like
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a young boy. The other possible reason that name was
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chosen is because not far from the Marrakesh restaurant as
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a shopping strip in DC known as Ladenfont Plaza, named
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after the American French military engineer who designed DC's original layout,
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and their speculation that the caller was named Latin Font
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due to the restaurant's proximity. However, he got his moniker.
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Laenfont's reign of psychological terror did not dissipate as Marrakesh
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DC celebrated its one year anniversary. If anything, his calls escalated,
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calling the restaurant over twenty times a day on some occasions,
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and instead of just lobbing eerie generic threats, laon Font
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began playing recordings of machine gun fire and people screaming
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over the phone. Other times, Laanenfant played recordings of children
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screeching while he swore he would kill Basher. And while
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his calls came in at any time of the day
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with no discernible pattern, the phone rang almost constantly when
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Bisher was in the building. Somehow, Landfant seemed to know
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when Basher was there and when he wasn't. Chapter five Escalation.
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By the second year of Marrakesh DC staff turn over,
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the restaurant was exceeding usual averages due to l'a Enfant's
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prolific harassment, and it got worse as he began giving
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specific details in his death threats that terrified not just
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Basher but other employees as well. At one point, Basher's
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longtime girlfriend, who often worked with him at the restaurant,
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picked up one of L'aandefont's calls, and he not only
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violently threatened her life, but also the life of her
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Bascher's unborn child. Somehow, lane Font knew she was several
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months pregnant. Around the third year of Lane Font's reign,
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he began using the names of Bascher's friends and family
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members and his threats to signal that he not only
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knew about Basher's place of work, but intimate details about
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his personal life too. And while today we might not
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find that very odd since most information it's easily found
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through social media or on websites that sell a person's information,
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back in nineteen eighty five there were very few ways
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someone could find personal information in another person, and lane
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Font even seemed to know Bascher's travel patterns, as when
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he went to Marrakesh, Philadelphia to help his sister, lon
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Font would call him multiple times a day at that
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restaurant too. This begged the question of who exactly lan
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Font was, How do you know these things? How was
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he getting his information? Basher didn't know. He had no idea,
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but the fact that someone seemed to be stalking him
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was enough to reignite all of his traumatic memories from
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his nineteen seventy four kidnapping. Chapter six, A descent into madness.
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Basher's employees had always described him as being a very cordial,
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nice man, but the more la Font called, the more
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Bashir's PTSD escalated, and his usually pleasant demeanor was rapidly
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replaced with intense, irate paranoia. His girlfriend told the only
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times that no one was above suspicion to him. He
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was very angry. He never got physical with anyone, but
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he would erupt in a rage. By Marrakesh DC's third
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year in business, not only was the staff turning over
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because of laden Font, but also because their boss had
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become raging, paranoid, and angry. And Basher's paranoia was only
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heightened when he went out to his car one evening
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after a shifted the restaurant and found that someone had
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keyed Stars of David into the side of his Mercedes.
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A few months later, in nineteen eighty six, Bascher went
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to drive one of his other vehicles parked outside the restaurant,
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and it caught on fire. When he brought the car
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to his mechanic, it was discovered that someone had tampered
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with the car's wiring to specifically cause an electrical fire.
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Was Lanfont behind the attack? Had he escalated from phone
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calls to attacking Bacher physically? Basher certainly thought so, but
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no one had been able to get Landfont to give
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up any information about his real identity. And Laanenfont had
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never specified how he was going to kill Buscher, just
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that he would. Oddly, his voice never changed, though, based
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on the amount of years he'd been calling, a boy
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of his age should have begun puberty, his voice should
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have deepened, but that never happened, and his calls only continued,
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averaging around fifteen to twenty times a day, seven days
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a week, and often more when Basheer was physically in
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the restaurant. By nighteen eighty six, laan Font had made
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over seven thousand violent threats via a phone call to Bisher,
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his family and friends, and almost all of his employees.
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Basher couldn't sleep, his nights filled with nightmares of his
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imprisonment at the hands of the PLO. His daily anxiety
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was so high from sleep deprivation that he could barely
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eat or see straight, and he swung from moody to
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spair to horrific rage depending on the moment. It got
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so bad that his girlfriend broke up with him, and
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Basher realized he was dangling over the precipice of a
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nervous breakdown. He had to do something to save himself,
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so in nineteen eighty seven, not long after his girlfriend left.
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Basher left Marrakesh DC and the care of his head
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manager and checked himself into the Sibly Memorial Hospital psychiatric ward.
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He stayed there for several weeks, feeling like it was
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the only place where lat and Font couldn't get to him.
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But that wouldn't be the case for long. Only a
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short time after he checked in, the nursing station began
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receiving strange calls for Bashir from a young boy talking
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about how he knew Bascher's daily routines in the hospital
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and about his movements around the facility. Apparently laan Font
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had found Basher again, but how how could he have
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infiltrated the closed psychiatric wing of the hospital. But lan
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Font wasn't done yet. While continuing to harass Bashir during
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his stay in the mental word, Latin Font still kept
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up his hundreds of calls to Marrakesh DC. Chapter seven
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called the FBI. After leaving the mental hospital several weeks
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later and getting no break from Laanfont's violent harassment, Bashir
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called the phone company and asked that a wire trace
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be put on the restaurant's phone line. And while the
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phone company wouldn't say anything on the record, about their findings.
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We know the phone tap was only put on Marrakesh's
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phone for one to two weeks, and there was no
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available data about what they done found. Whatever it was
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seemed to not be enough for Bashir, as he contacted
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the FBI and had them tap his phone as well,
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and though it took Basher hiring several lawyers to plead
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his case to the FBI, they finally agreed to check
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anto this harassment calls in nineteen eighty eight. Over the
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course of the next eighteen months, the FBI collected data
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from Basher's phone line, but not even they were able
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to uncover who laen Font really was because, as it
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turned out, lan Font wasn't just one person, he was
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multiple people. Based on the call tracers, the FBI found
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that the Lanfont calls were being made from dozens of
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pathons around the DC area. It was impossible in nineteen
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eighty eight to know who was actually making any of
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those calls, but based on the frequency with which they
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came into the restaurant from so many different pathons, the
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FBI concluded that there were several different laen fonts, all
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calling the restaurant from different places around the city. They
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couldn't explain how they all were able to sound like
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one prepebestment Borlar, or why the sounds of people screaming
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00:19:02.400 --> 00:19:04.920
machine gun fires were heard so often in the background
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if it was a payth on those being used. But
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aside from Basher's car catching fire, which couldn't technically be
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00:19:10.200 --> 00:19:12.839
proven to be associated with the land Font, there were
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no active threats from the FBI's perspective, so they closed
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the case Chapter eight. Lan Font is undeterred. Unfortunately for Bashir,
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the FBI's involvement didn't deter laan Font, who kept up
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00:19:29.400 --> 00:19:33.400
his harassment all through the FBI's investigation. Only three weeks
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after Basher had left the Sibley Hospital Psychiatric Word he
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was checking himself back in the law on Font still
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called him there. The nurses took the calls, and Misher
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didn't have to deal with them, so it still gave
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Basher some level of relief. This pattern would continue for
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Basher well into the early nineteen nineties, where he would
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stay in the Psychiatric Word for a few months, feel better,
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go back to his normal life, and then be harassed
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00:19:57.680 --> 00:20:00.359
multiple times a day by lyon Font, leading him to
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00:20:00.440 --> 00:20:03.400
quickly feel paranoid and edgy, and within only two to
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three weeks Bashir would be back in the psychiatric word.
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By this point, LanFan had been violently harassing Basher from
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ust a decade every day the twenty times a day,
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seven days a week. The psychiatric word was the only
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place that Bashir felt safe, and with his erratic mental state,
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his family took over Marrakesh DC Chapter nine, Unsolved Mysteries.
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In nineteen ninety one, Basher filed a workman's comp case
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with his insurer, stating that the nature of his job
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required him to constantly answer the phone, which meant constantly
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having to interact with his harasser, leading to the primary
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cause of his mental instability, and based on the fact
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that he was awarded over four hundred thousand dollars, he
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had to have some very substantial evidence to present his case.
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A year later, in nineteen ninety two, Basher did an
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interview with The Eli Times about his situation, and the
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show Unsolved Mysteries read the article and took an interest
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in Basher's story. They met with him and he agreed
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to be featured on the show. Though he was back
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in a psychiatric word at the time and Landefont was
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00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:19.799
still calling Marrakesh DC, those calls were down to five
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to eight a day instead of twenty. The Unsolved Mysteries
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episode first aired on February seventeenth, nineteen ninety three, and
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featured an interview with Bacher in his hospital room and
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overlaying his story with live action reenactment of the events.
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What's interesting is that almost immediately after the airing of
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the Unsolved Mysteries episode, Lonefont's decades reign of harassment suddenly stopped.
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Was it possible with Unsolved Mysteries national airtime was enough
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to scare lone Font in the submission or was it
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00:21:51.160 --> 00:21:55.519
simply coincidence. No one knows. But regardless of the fact
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that the incessant phone harassment finally stopped, Basheer was in
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no way left unscaped. Chapter ten forever changed. Even after
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00:22:09.920 --> 00:22:12.960
the onslought was over, Basher continued to be in and
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out of psychiatric words well into the nineteen nineties, and
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his long standing mental instability alienated him from his family.
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By two thousand, Basher was estranged from all six of
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his children, who were now adults, and his family had
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essentially ousted him from anything to do with either Merricash restaurant,
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but this didn't stop him from causing a terrible pr
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storm for the restaurants in two thousand and two, though
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he was no longer associated with Marrakesh Restaurants at the time,
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Bascher spent thousands of dollars to post ten quarter page
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ads in The Washington Post that he claimed was sponsored
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by Marrakesh Enterprises and enlisted the restaurant's addresses and phone numbers.
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In the ads, Basher wrote anti Semitic remarks about Zionists
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turning Jewish beliefs into political parties, along with links to
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direct readers to Bisher's new personal website, which was called
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doubtcom dot com. On his website, Basher spooed blame on
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the Jews and Israeli government for his imprisonment back in
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nineteen seventy four and his subsequent issues with Landfont, causing
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his mental breakdown and estrangement from his children. Basher also
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had many disparaging views on gay people and women. The
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Marrakesh restaurants faced immediate backlash from the Jewish community for
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Basher's anti semitism, with proposed boycotts of the restaurants and
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an influx of protest letters from the Anti Defamation League.
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The Washington Post quickly pooled the ad and also returned
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Bisher's payment for the nine other ads he wanted to run,
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and the real Marrakesh enterprises found themselves running defense to
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distance themselves from Bashir, telling The Washington Post that Bashir
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has nothing to do with Marrakesh and that the family
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absolutely didn't endorse his views. Basher, who spoke six languages
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and had become a successful restaurant and business owner, was
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now an unhinged man in his fifties. Chapter eleven, who
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00:24:09.640 --> 00:24:14.079
was la enfant Well? Bashir's weird website is no longer
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00:24:14.119 --> 00:24:16.279
active and he's not been in the media for a
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00:24:16.359 --> 00:24:19.359
very long time. The strange phenomenon of lan Font still
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00:24:19.359 --> 00:24:23.440
remains a mystery. His real identity is still unknown, as
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well as the reason for the decade of psychological torture
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of a simple restaurant owner and his staff. The Marrakesh
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00:24:30.519 --> 00:24:33.440
and Philadelphia is still very active and if any of
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our listeners are local to the Filly area, you can
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go experience their food and live dancers seven days a week,
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five thirty pm to eleven pm. The Marrakesh DC, however,
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00:24:44.240 --> 00:24:46.880
closed in twenty eighteen in order to move to a
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new location, But it doesn't seem like that ever happened
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00:24:49.640 --> 00:24:52.440
since as of the recording of this episode, their websites
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are no longer active, and their Yelp and Google page
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have marked the establishment as permanently closed. Well. Not even
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the FBI was able to figure out who Landfont was.
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00:25:02.200 --> 00:25:05.720
This mysterious reign of psychological terror destroyed the life of
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Bashir kussack g without any rhyme or reason. Could Bashir's
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00:25:09.960 --> 00:25:12.960
kidnapping have had something to do with his harassment? Were
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00:25:12.960 --> 00:25:16.480
there deeper, more sinister political pawns at play through this story?
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No one will ever know for sure. What do you
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00:25:19.960 --> 00:25:23.279
think of Lanfont's reign of terror? What was it about?
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00:25:23.519 --> 00:25:28.880
And do you have a theory? Audience invitation, is there
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00:25:28.960 --> 00:25:32.079
a case or an unexplained communication you'd like us to cover.
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00:25:32.640 --> 00:25:34.799
Please take the time to rate and review the show,
410
00:25:35.200 --> 00:25:37.440
and in your comments tell us what case you'd like
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00:25:37.519 --> 00:25:40.279
us to tackle. You can also follow us and reach
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00:25:40.359 --> 00:25:44.000
us on social media ron x dot com at Killer
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00:25:44.279 --> 00:25:49.799
cepod and on Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash Killer
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00:25:49.839 --> 00:25:53.359
Communications Podcast, and be sure to check out our website,
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00:25:53.440 --> 00:25:58.880
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show notes. Your support is greatly appreciated. Just a heads up.
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New episodes of Killer Communications air every other Saturday. Thanks
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for listening, and we hope you'll join us on the
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next episode of Killer Communications.
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00:26:56.880 --> 00:27:00.319
Killer Communications is narrated and produced by Mike Moore Efford
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for Abject Entertainment. It's researched and written by Abigail Belcastro.
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Be sure to visit the show's website Killercommunications Podcast. Dot
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