ROANOKE 'SHEIK' DUPED RICHMOND WITH HOAX IN 1978Date: December 3, 2003 Section: VIRGINIA Page: A1 By Matt Chittum matt.chittum@roanoke.com 981-3331 The sheik pulled up in a chauffeured, silver Rolls-Royce. Dressed in a flowing, white robe and headdress, a massive diamond ring on one hand, and surrounded by men in three-piece suits, he stepped out of the car and onto brick-paved Cary Street in Richmond's fashionable Shockoe Slip. Sheik Amad Abdul Shemab was in Virginia on business with Exxon and was to dine at the hip, new Tobacco Company restaurant. No one noticed his unlikely footwear - preppy Bass Weejuns loafers - or that his massive diamond ring was a fake, or that his robe was actually a bedsheet with some holes cut in it. The headdress was real, but that was no sheik under it. That was Luther Utt, a Roanoke junior high school teacher, accompanied by an entourage of his drinking buddies in a car they borrowed from one of their mothers. Twenty-five years ago Tuesday, in a less politically correct time when Americans associated Arabs with the gasoline shortage and not the horrors of terrorism, six well-lubricated twentysomething guys from Roanoke "punk'd" the upscale restaurant's staff and customers, including at least one real Arab, and even the Iranian-born chief photographer from the Richmond-Times Dispatch. It was a gag born partly of a bunch of guys sitting around drinking beer and feeling devious, Utt said, and partly of "a real gift for bulls----ing." Utt, now 52 and a resident of Chesapeake, first portrayed the sheik at a Halloween party that October. The dark-complexioned, mustachioed Utt was so convincing that the friends decided they ought to take the sheik on the road. Most of the details of the plot were manufactured around the kitchen table in the Richmond home of Paul Karnes. Before long, someone was on the phone with the restaurant saying that Sheik Amad Abdul Shemab of Kuwait would be dining there that night. The restaurant didn't take reservations, and on a Saturday night would surely be packed, but an "advance team" - Roanoker Chip Deyerle and his blind date - visited the Tobacco Company to ensure appropriate security and accommodations. Next they called the Richmond Times-Dispatch and tipped the paper to the sheik's arrival. The entourage arrived in a Rolls-Royce and a new Mercedes-Benz that belonged to the Karnes family. Utt entered surrounded by his security detail: Bill Johnson, Gerry Brogan and David Wallenborn. Utt never spoke out loud. He whispered all communications into the ear of Gerry Brogan, aka John Valentine, chief of security and personal aide to his excellency. "Luther couldn't say a word or you'd know he was from Roanoke," Johnson said. The group was greeted by John Ross, general manager of the restaurant, who shooed other customers out of the elevator so the sheik could ride up to his table. Ross took the whole entourage on a tour of the restaurant, including the kitchen, which fell silent when the group entered. At one point, Utt told Brogan to tell Ross he wanted to buy the restaurant, Utt recalled. The flabbergasted manager replied that he'd have to contact the owners. "By this point, we were three sheets to the wind," Utt said. "And being three sheets to the wind helped us pull this thing off." But there were nervous moments. During dinner, an Arab man entered the room and passed a handwritten note to Utt - in Arabic. Unsure of what to do, Utt pretended to read it, then smiled and nodded, which excited the man so much that the phony security had to escort him away. The note, translated later, said "a thousand blessings on his excellency." Later, Utt went to the restroom, which his security detailed cleared. On the way out, he saw the parents of a friend from Roanoke. They recognized him and the woman reportedly turned to her husband and said, "What the hell is Luther Utt doing all dressed up like that?" After paying the $200 tab, buying a couple of cigars and tipping heavily, the group left the restaurant, where they encountered Times-Dispatch photographer Amir Pishdad. He snapped a picture that ran in the paper the next day with no indication that anyone at the paper knew they had been fooled. The paper later ran a light-hearted piece explaining the hoax. Pishdad, 72 and now retired, said he remembers little from that night. "You're not writing another story about that are you?" he asked. "You must be out of stuff." Ross, the restaurant manager, later claimed he knew it was a joke the whole time. But Utt wonders why he would have been so helpful to people he knew were wasting his time on a busy Saturday night. Utt believes people were just ready to believe it. "We played all the roles that people have been conditioned to expect to see." The group didn't speak for two blocks as they pulled away that night, in awe of their total success. Once they started laughing, they couldn't stop. They still laugh about it every time they see one another. Brogan, who finances car loans, and Johnson, chairman of the board of Magic City Ford, both have scrapbooks of photos and newspaper clippings about the gag. Utt is teaching school again after several years in the airline industry. He and his wife have two teenagers. "In this day and age, you could never do something like this without people pointing out that you're trying to slander or stereotype a particular ethnic group," he acknowledged. All three co-conspirators emphasize the harmless lark hurt no one physically, financially or emotionally. "Everybody said, how are you going to top it?" Johnson said. "Well, we couldn't."Caption: Photo - 1 Gerry Brogan He headed security. Photo -
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