Business owner in suburban Detroit ignited and explodedkilled a man and was arrested at a New York airport as he prepared to leave for Hong Kong on a one-way ticket, authorities said Friday.
U.S. Customs and New York Port Authority officers arrested Nour Noel Kestou, 31, at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday. He was brought back to Michigan on Wednesday.
Kestau commercial district, was indicted He will be charged with manslaughter on Thursday.
The March 4 fire and explosion occurred at a building in Clinton Township that housed an e-cigarette industry distribution company called Goo. More than 100,000 vape pens were stored on the premises. Authorities say a truckload of butane cylinders arrived at the building within a week of the explosion, sending the cylinders flying up to 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) and that more than half of the inventory was still there when the fire started. Stated.
Turner Lee Salter, 19, was about a quarter mile (0.40 km) away when he was hit by a canister of nitrous oxide thrown into the air by the explosion. Salter later died.
Authorities said they received information on April 20 that Kestou was attempting to fly to Hong Kong.
“We don’t know what his ultimate goal was,” Macomb County Attorney Peter Lucido told reporters Friday. “Was it to take his wife and child and stay abroad?” No one has a crystal ball to determine who is a flight risk. ”
“He is the owner of this business and was a suspect from the beginning,” Lucido added. “Anyone who runs a business and something like this happens to them has to be considered a suspect.”
Gu received an occupancy permit from the Clinton Township Building Department in September 2022 for a 26,700 square foot (2,480 square meter) building as a retail “smoking area/vaping store” selling paraphernalia for vaping products. Was. Said.
Kestow was released on $500,000 bail. Lucido said authorities have his passport and a condition of his bail is that Kesto wear a GPS tether. A probable cause hearing is scheduled for May 7 in Clinton Township District Court.
Mr. Kesteau’s lawyer, James Thomas, said Thursday that he would not comment on the case.
