Death threats and 1,000 angry phone calls: Texas plumber sues dealer for $1m and tells how his life was ruined after his truck was sold to Syrian rebels who used it to attack Aleppo

  • Mark Oberholtzer, owner of Mark-1 Plumbing in Texas City, Texas,  left the ‘Mark-1 plumbing’ stickers on the truck when he traded it in in 2013 
  • A year later, the truck - still displaying stickers and Oberholtzer's phone number - appeared in a jihadi propaganda photograph 
  • Oberholtzer is now seeking more than $1million in punitive damages from AutoNation Ford Gulf Freeway

Mark Oberholtzer, of Texas City, Texas, said his company truck ended up in the hands of a jihadi group after he turned it into a dealership in 2013

Mark Oberholtzer, of Texas City, Texas, said his company truck ended up in the hands of a jihadi group after he turned it into a dealership in 2013

A plumber in Texas said his life was ruined after a photo of jihadis shooting an anti-aircraft gun from a pickup truck displaying his company’s decals went viral last year.

Mark Oberholtzer, owner of Mark-1 Plumbing in Texas City, left the ‘Mark-1 plumbing’ stickers on the truck when he traded it in for a newer Ford pickup at AutoNation Ford Gulf Freeway in October 2013.

A year later, a photo posted on Twitter by the extremist Ansar al-Deen Front from the front lines of the war in Syria showed his truck - stickers and all - being used by jihadis.

Oberholtzer is now seeking more than $1million in punitive damages from AutoNation Ford Gulf Freeway for fraud, gross negligence, negligent misrepresentation, defamation, invasion of privacy and deceptive trade, according to Courthouse News.

At the time he turned his truck into the dealer, he started peeling the stickers off his truck, but a salesman stopped him, telling him it ‘would blemish the vehicle paint’ and ‘the dealership had something better for removal’, Oberholtzer said in a lawsuit in Harris County Court.

On December 17, 2014, Oberholtzer’s secretary called him to let him know that a member of the jihadi group Ansar al-Deen tweeted a ‘propaganda photograph’ with a message reading: ‘using plumbing truck against regime in #Aleppo’.

Oberholtzer’s company logo and photo were depicted on the vehicle door in the photograph.

It remains unknown, however, if the photo is entirely authentic, with a video surfacing around the same time which suggests the photo could have been digitally altered.

A propaganda photo of Oberholtzer's truck - featuring 'Mark-1 Plumbing' stickers and his phone number - went viral in 2014. The Texan plumber is now suing the dealership who told him to leave the company stickers on the car when he turned it in for a newer model

A propaganda photo of Oberholtzer's truck - featuring 'Mark-1 Plumbing' stickers and his phone number - went viral in 2014. The Texan plumber is now suing the dealership who told him to leave the company stickers on the car when he turned it in for a newer model

This photo, taken from a propaganda video, shows a near identical scene featuring a different truck, raising questions as to the authenticity of the photo featuring Mr Oberholtzer's truck

This photo, taken from a propaganda video, shows a near identical scene featuring a different truck, raising questions as to the authenticity of the photo featuring Mr Oberholtzer's truck

Superimposing a better vehicle and gun into a still frame from the original video would be significantly easier than trying to alter the video itself.

This could be why the video features an older model car and weapon, but the photo features Oberholtzer's older truck.

But despite this, Oberholtzer still received backlash from the community.

‘By the end of the day, Mark-1's office, Mark-1's business phone, and Mark's personal cellphone had received over 1,000 phone calls from the around the nation. These phone calls were in large part harassing and contained countless threats of violence, property harm, injury and even death,’ Oberholtzer’s complaint said.

The plumber said his secretary was too scared to go to the office and that he was afraid for himself and his family, so he traveled to McCallen to escape the backlash.

‘While in McAllen, Mark called defendant to discuss the situation. Defendant stated that they “never touched the truck”, but instead sent it to Dallas,’ the complaint said.

Oberholtzer said that the truck was sold in an auction in Texas in November 2013, and the following month it was shipped from Houston to Turkey.

After the photo and video went viral, ‘USA Today, CBS, NBC and Inside Edition’ requested interviews and the FBI and Department of Homeland Security stopped by to tell him ‘there are crazy people out there’ and that he should ‘protect himself’.

Oberholtzer’s complaint also mentions The Colbert Report’s final episode, which ‘began with the segment “Texan’s Truck in Syria”,’ which featured his truck and was the ‘most watched episode ever in the show’s history’.

A year later, Oberholtzer said he still gets threatening phone calls ‘whenever ISIS commits an atrocity that is reported nationally’.

The comments below have not been moderated.

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

We are no longer accepting comments on this article.