Furniture shop owner charged with sexually assaulting woman inside store

A certain bodily function shouldn’t be performed on one’s own doorstep, as the charming saying goes.

And yet a furniture shop owner in Connecticut was apparently willing to risk going against that proverbial wisdom, such was his confidence in the quality of his wares.

Hennawi Salem is accused of sexually assaulting a woman inside his store after persuading her to follow him down into the shop’s basement to “test” a mattress.

The eponymous owner of Salem Furniture in Bridgeport was arrested Tuesday for allegedly “luring a female customer” to the recesses of his Porter Street business and asking her to “lay down” to try out his goods, police said.

Salem then told the woman the mattress was “free” before sexually assaulting her, according to Bridgeport police.

The overfamiliar owner was taken into custody at his store on a warrant for fourth-degree sexual assault.

Salem had been previously arrested in September for third-degree sexual assault, second-degree unlawful restraint and risk of injury to a child, after three female victims made “similar accusations,” police said.

He was released on $60,000 bond for those charges, according to court records cited by the Connecticut Post. However, the case is still pending and he was yet to enter a plea.

Salem posted $70,000 bond following his Tuesday arrest, a Bridgeport police spokesman told the New York Post.

Salem Furniture’s website proudly proclaims, “We never let anyone leave our store without a smile on their face.”  

Given the recent turn of events, it appears they may be trying a little too hard to fulfill that promise.