Sarasota Almost Conned Out of Local Bookstore

by Rachel Deahl, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 11/23/2005

It sounds like something out of a Carl Hiaasen novel, but what happened with the recent sale of Sarasota News & Books proves the old adage that truth can be stranger than fiction. The story, which began unfolding months ago, was put into motion when Sarasota News & Books's owners, Dick and Caren Lobo, decided it was time to get out of the bookselling business.

The Lobos, who, in addition to selling their bookstore were also looking to relinquish the prime piece of commercial real estate that houses Sarasota News & Books, had thought they'd found the ideal buyer in an out-of-towner named Thomas Coelho. Brought in on the deal by a local and, according to Lobo, well-respected, real estate broker named Derek Filcoff, Coelho was looking to buy the bookstore and the accompanying building with his partner, Randall Bono. After doing some research, the Lobos found that Bono was a well known attorney who lived in Sarasota; they found nothing on Coelho. The deal nonetheless proceeded as expected…until a strange note arrived at the bookstore.

The note, which was actually a reprint of a 1999 story from The Hartford Advocate aptly titled "The Art of the Con," discussed at length the suspect maneuvers of a local man named Thomas Jurewicz. Since the article also featured pictures of Jurewicz, it was immediately clear to the Lobos that Jurewicz was indeed their new buyer, Thomas Coelho. Armed with this new information, the Lobos, along with their lawyers, confronted Coelho and Filcoff via conference call. "At that point we didn't know who we were dealing with," Caren said. After speaking with the pair, and listening to Filcoff vouch for his partner (who, the Lobos were told, was repentant about his past and had changed his name to put his misdeeds behind him), the husband-and-wife team decided to move ahead with the deal.

Caren, who said the pair had kept their word up until that point (and had also delivered a sizeable closing fee), believed Coelho and Filcoff and decided that the Advocate article was speaking about past trespasses. That all changed when, the following day, The Sarasota Herald-Tribune ran a story about how the Lobos were selling their bookstore to man who had a warrant (for grand larceny) out for his arrest.

After the story hit, the Lobos received a visit from the third partner in their deal, the one man they hadn't met: Randall Bono. Bono, recalled Caren, showed up at her house with paper in hand to discuss the unfortunate turn of events. After a discussion, it was agreed that deal would be put right. The goal was to allow Bono to go ahead and purchase the Lobos' building as planned, but find a new buyer for the bookstore.

Call it a holiday miracle, or a bit of old fashioned good luck, but a new buyer was indeed found. Andrew and Meghan Foley have signed on as the newest owners of Sarasota News & Book. The young pair seems like the ideal fit, not only because they grew up with the bookstore (under its previous incarnation as Charlie's News), but also because they have longstanding ties to the community. According to Hester Jeswald, a longtime employee of the store, the sale is particularly fitting because the Foleys seem both eager to learn the ropes from the current staff, and will keep the store in local hands. "It's a nice tradition," Jeswald said, "because their dad was very well-respected in the community." The deal on the bookstore, which closed last week, will be finalized December 1. And, while the name of the store may or may not change, the in-joke among the employees about the new moniker becoming 'Sarasota News & Crooks' can thankfully be laid to rest.