Police: California sex shop owner dies in blaze he started inside business

Fox News Flash top headlines for Sept. 18

Fox News Flash top headlines for Sept. 18 are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com

The owner of a troubled California sex shop was identified Tuesday as the dead man found in the store over the weekend. Authorities say he died after setting the business ablaze.

The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office in San Jose identified Pirtpal Singh, 33, as the deceased male found in the basement of the Craze 4 Toys Adult Superstore, The San Jose Mercury-News reported.

Authorities received reports of a man wielding a sledgehammer and yelling threats outside the store just before 5:30 p.m. Sunday. He apparently broke into the shop through a side entry because the front doors were locked due to an eviction.

Within a few minutes, the officers saw the man light some device on fire and throw it in the building, starting the three-alarm blaze. Firefighters fought the fire and found Singh dead in the basement afterward.

Authorities said Pirtpal Singh, 33, owner of the Craze 4 Toys Adult Superstore in San Jose, Calif., started a fire inside the business over the weekend. (Google Maps )

“We’re operating on the assumption that he started the fire or multiple fires,” Fire Capt. Mitch Matlow told the paper. “We’re operating under the assumption that the body we found was the person making the threats.”

The business had incurred a series of setbacks in recent years. On Aug. 30, Singh was notified that the shop was being evicted. The eviction became final Sept. 5.

In 2016, he was sued for allegedly defaulting on a $45,000 loan. Police said a neighbor said Singh once threatened to “blow up the building.”

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

After the loan default, he re-licensed the business as a nonprofit “for the purpose of sexual education and awareness of various alternatives for both women and men to prevent sexual dysfunction, abuse, and assist with maintaining healthy sexual relationships with oneself and with others," according to the newspaper.

But he dissolved his corporation in March, ending its nonprofit status.

"He was an immigrant and trying to keep his business running. He went through a divorce. I think he was having difficulties with a couple things. People trying to shut down his business," Luke McDonald, who knew Singh, told KGO-TV.