Private company

Crazy Eddie

U.S. electronics retail company

Crazy Eddie was a consumer electronics retail chain in the Northeastern United States. It was founded in 1969 in New York City by Eddie Antar and Sam M. Antar and initially operated as ERS Electronics, named for its three initial partners: Eddie Antar, Ronnie Gindi, and Eddie's father Sam M. Antar. The chain expanded in the New York metropolitan area and became known for discount pricing and extensive radio and television advertising featuring spokesperson Jerry Carroll.² It ceased to exist in 2012.¹ Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1971Founded¹

Industryretail¹
HeadquartersBrooklyn¹
Founded inBrooklyn¹

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Crazy Eddie was a consumer electronics retail chain in the Northeastern United States. It was founded in 1969 in New York City by Eddie Antar and Sam M. Antar and initially operated as ERS Electronics, named for its three initial partners: Eddie Antar, Ronnie Gindi, and Eddie's father Sam M. Antar. The chain expanded in the New York metropolitan area and became known for discount pricing and extensive radio and television advertising featuring spokesperson Jerry Carroll. At its peak, Crazy Eddie operated 43 stores in four states and reported more than $300 million in sales.²

The story

Founded by Eddie Antar in 1971, in Brooklyn.¹

Background

Eddie Antar (December 18, 1947–September 10, 2016) was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to a family of Syrian Jewish origin. His grandparents moved to Brooklyn from Aleppo, Syria. Antar's father, Sam Antar, was a retailer.

The predecessor to Crazy Eddie was a consumer electronics store called Sight and Sound. It was operated by ERS Electronics, a company owned by Sam M. Antar, Eddie Antar, and Eddie Antar's cousin Ronnie Gindi. Sight and Sound, located on Kings Highway in Brooklyn, began operations in 1969. Eddie Antar became known as "Crazy Eddie" for his sales approach. Within eighteen months, the store was near bankruptcy. Eddie Antar later bought out Gindi's ownership stake, and Sam M. Antar retained an ownership interest while leaving day-to-day operations to Eddie Antar. In 1971, the Kings Highway store was renamed Crazy Eddie.

During the 1970s, the company expanded beyond Brooklyn. A second location opened in Syosset, New York, in 1973, followed by a third location in Greenwich Village in 1975. The company established a corporate office on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn that year. By 1977, it had opened additional stores, including locations in The Bronx and in Paramus, New Jersey, along Route 17. By 1981, Crazy Eddie operated ten locations, including a Manhattan store on East 57th Street on the Upper East Side.

2022 book

In August 2022, journalist Gary Weiss published Retail Gangster, a book about Crazy Eddie and the fraud committed by company leadership.

From Wikipedia’s article on Crazy Eddie, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.³

Leadership

Who has led Crazy Eddie, and when. Pick a name to see everywhere that person has worked.

FounderEddie Antar¹

Controversies and legal

Fraud and decline

Crazy Eddie management engaged in tax and accounting fraud, including falsifying records to reduce taxable income. The company also paid employees off the books and skimmed cash receipts. According to published accounts, portions of the proceeds were deposited in Israeli bank accounts beginning in 1979, and the family deposited millions of dollars in offshore accounts during the early 1980s.

By the early 1980s, the company prepared to become publicly traded. One method described in published accounts was reducing the amount of cash being skimmed, which increased reported earnings and profit margins. Between 1980 and 1983, reported profit growth exceeded the company's underlying profit growth, according to accounts of the fraud.

Crazy Eddie held its initial public offering on September 13, 1984 (former symbol: CRZY). Shares, which were traded on the NASDAQ, initially sold for $8. By early 1986, the stock traded above $75 per share.

Eddie Antar recruited his cousin Sam E. Antar to assist with accounting and financial reporting. Sammy earned an accounting degree in 1980 and worked for Penn and Horowitz, Crazy Eddie's auditor. In 1986, he became chief financial officer. Published accounts describe schemes that used funds held abroad to inflate reported sales and financial results, including transfers through accounts in Panama.

As a public company, Crazy Eddie engaged in inventory fraud to inflate reported profits. For the fiscal year ending March 1, 1985, published accounts reported that inventories were overstated by $3 million, with larger overstatements reported in the following fiscal year.

In 1987, published accounts describe a shift from inflating results to concealing earlier misstatements. During fiscal year 1987, inventory figures were overstated by tens of millions of dollars, and the company recorded debit memos and chargebacks to vendors that reduced accounts payable. By late 1986 and into 1987, the company's stock price declined and earnings decreased, while sales growth reflected new store openings. In May 1987, Antar pursued a plan to take the company private and sought financing from Canadian investment banker Samuel Belzberg.

Read the full text

In 1987, Texas-based investor Elias Zinn acquired a significant stake in Crazy Eddie and, with support from management consultant Victor Palmieri, obtained a controlling interest through a hostile takeover. After the takeover, analysts concluded that the company's inventory was materially overstated, with published accounts later estimating a final shortfall of $80 million.

In February 1989, Zinn left the company; the next month, seventeen of the forty-three locations were closed in an attempt to mitigate losses. Crazy Eddie filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June 1989 after its creditors had begun proceedings to try to force it into bankruptcy.

Eight more stores were closed that August. Then, on September 5, Crazy Eddie stock was delisted from the NASDAQ. Less than a month later, on October 2, the executive board of Crazy Eddie filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and the company liquidated. By the end of November 1989, the remaining eighteen stores had closed.

Legal battles

A former Crazy Eddie associate, Arnie Spindler, provided investigators with information about the company's financial practices, according to published accounts. In August 1987, the band They Might Be Giants threatened legal action over allegations that the chain used 2 of their songs called “Absolutely Bill’s Mood” and “Mr. Me” in a radio commercial without permission after the band declined to write a jingle.

In September 1989, the SEC charged Eddie Antar with securities fraud and illegal insider trading. In January 1990, a federal judge ordered Antar to repatriate funds transferred to Israel and to appear in court. After failing to appear for hearings, warrants were issued and assets were frozen, according to published accounts.

Antar fled to Israel under an alias and was arrested in 1992 in connection with extradition proceedings. He returned to the United States in January 1993 after legal proceedings in Israel. His trial began in June 1993, and he was convicted on multiple counts of fraud in July 1993. His conviction was later overturned on appeal in 1995 based on findings of judicial bias, according to published accounts. Antar later pleaded guilty in 1996 and was sentenced in 1997 to eight years in prison. Civil litigation continued for many years, and efforts to recover funds for investors continued into the 2010s.