Shirley deli owner who helped robber to focus on charity

Mohammad Sohail, the Shirley deli owner who became a media sensation in June after a surveillance tape captured him handing $40 to a bungling robber, has become so enamored of charity that he has decided to make it his full-time work.

The convenience store owner's brush with fame - which came after the 47-year-old took pity on a whimpering thief he subdued - prompted people from around the country to send Sohail letters of thanks.

Sohail said three people who sent checks - one for $100 and two, appropriately, for $40 - gave him the inspiration to start a charity foundation. The foundation, which Sohail said he hopes to launch in a couple of months, would provide food and emergency services for poor people, he said.

"I go anywhere, everyone knows my face. Everyone likes my thing that I did," said Sohail, adding that the experience made him want to do something "for hungry people and needy people every day."

Sohail said he will get out of the convenience store business once he starts his new venture. Patrons of Shirley Express Convenience who start every day with a "Hey Mo" and a coffee at the William Floyd Parkway storefront likely will lament that decision.

For now, Sohail adorns the store with newspaper headlines and letters praising his mercy. One letter, from a California woman, says the writer "jumped to my feet and said, I need to send this man some money" because "kindness needs to be rewarded."

She sent $100.

Another letter, from a woman named Iris, tells Sohail: "You were the Good Samaritan today."

Sohail said he is considering calling the charity "Adam & Eve Children's Nonprofit Foundation." The Biblical reference is to remind people that "we are all brothers," he said.

Sohail has said he is working on paying down five tax warrants that totaled $137,331.28 in June. Representatives from the state Department of Taxation and Finance could not provide an updated figure Monday.

Sohail also made news in June when his store was raided and authorities seized more than a dozen pipes and bongs. Sohail is due in court Aug. 25 and could face up to $30,000 in civil penalties on charges of selling the bongs to buyers who expressed interest in using them for drugs.

A sign in the store attests that Sohail, who said he destroyed his remaining bongs, is now "swinging for a bong free community."

Brookhaven Town Supervisor Mark Lesko said he commends Sohail if he "is in fact counting himself among the converted," but added that a town attorney is still pursuing the court case.