- An employee from a family-run dealership in Florida was convicted of carjacking a customer.
- The incident happened despite the car owner being current on his payment plan.
- Now, the convicted employee faces up to 15 years in prison after being found guilty by a jury.
In the world of car dealerships, payment disputes typically unfold with a few phone calls to the bank or a stack of paperwork behind closed doors, not in the streets with threats and guns. But when tempers flare and judgment fails, things can take a dangerous turn. What should have been a routine issue over a missed payment on a 2020 Honda Accord in Florida, spiraled into a carjacking, leaving one dealer employee staring down the barrel of a prison sentence.
Erik Hadad is a 58-year-old Israeli national and employee at his family’s dealership, Guru Auto Sales in Aventura, Florida. On December 19, 2023, he carjacked a customer and is now facing up to 15 years in prison after his conviction by a Miami jury, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The 24-year-old victim is a Haitian immigrant who bought a 2020 Honda Accord in October of 2023. The DOJ provided further context on the victim’s predicament in an official statement.
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“In making the purchase, the victim understood that he was paying a finance company…,” the DOJ explained. “What the victim was not aware of was that there was an agreement between the finance company and Guru, and if the victim was late on a payment within the first two months of the loan, then the finance company could demand the approximately $13,800 it paid for the loan back from the dealership.”
This detail is crucial because the victim’s first payment bounced. He then paid a late fee along with the first installment in November. Since he was late, the dealer received a letter on December 14th, informing them that they needed to buy back the loan for roughly $13,000. Notably, the crime happened five days later, despite clear instructions to the dealer from the financing company that they could not repossess the car. In fact, by the 19th, the victim was still current on the loan.
Despite these facts, Hadad followed the victim for an unspecified amount of time. When the victim finally stopped, Hadad stepped out of his BMW, ripped off the paper tag present on the Honda, and “continued aggressively screaming for the victim to get out of the car. Hadad lifted his shirt to reveal that he had a gun holstered in his waistband, which led the victim to surrender his keys,” says the report from the DOJ.
Eventually, the victim managed to call the police and surprisingly, Hadad was still at the scene when the officers arrived. At that point, authorities took Hadad into custody. As things stand, Hadad will be sentenced on January 9, 2025, and faces the possibility of spending the next 15 years behind bars—plenty of time to ponder how a simple dealership squabble spiraled into carjacking.
