2 charged with false imprisonment in Coastland Center mall incident

CCSO

• Name: IBRAHIM, IYAD
• Charge: KIDNAP - FALSE IMPRISONMENT ADULT
• Residence: Naples
• Age: 30
• Occupation: NA
• Case #: Not yet available

CCSO

• Name: IBRAHIM, ALI IBRAHIM
• Charge: KIDNAP - FALSE IMPRISONMENT ADULT
• Residence: Naples
• Age: 27
• Occupation: SALES
• Case #: Not yet available

Glen D. Harrell

Coastland Center, Naples, Florida

NAPLES — Two Fort Myers men are each facing a felony charge after Naples police say they held a man in the back room of a Coastland Center mall store during a dispute over money on Wednesday afternoon.

Ali Ibrahim, 27, and Iyad Ibrahim, 30, were each charged with one count of false imprisonment.

Around 1 p.m., police were called to the Men’s Palace store for a report of a hostage situation, police reported. What they discovered when they arrived wasn’t technically a hostage incident, but a dispute between store employees over money, police said.

“It was confined to this store, and they had him in the back room of the store,” Naples police spokesman John Barkley said.

Ali Ibrahim and Iyad Ibrahim are both affiliated with the Men’s Palace, but Barkley wasn’t exactly sure how. They are accused of holding a store employee in a back room of the store and not allowing him to leave because he owed them money.

Initial police scanner reports indicated that a Men’s Palace employee was being held at gunpoint. During the course of their investigation detectives located a handgun in the store.

But Barkley said they were unable to prove that either Ali Ibrahim or Iyad Ibrahim used the weapon during the dispute.

“That’s why they weren’t charged with it,” Barkley said.

There is little indication that mall customers had any inkling what was going on in the back room of the Men’s Palace. Just after 1 p.m., police presence was minimal and shoppers and mall employees were going about their normal business.

They were never in danger, Barkley said.

Glenn Harrell, the mall’s general manager, initially said that reports of a hostage situation at the mall were not true, and were instead called in by a third party outside the mall. He directed all further questions to Naples police.

Connect with Ryan Mills at www.naplesnews.com/staff/ryan-mills/.