Florida adult store owner dead in Chemical warfare attack

Urban terrism has hit Gainesville Fl.

47 year old Jerry Sullivan was evidently a local character - he owned the Cafe Erotica, located just off Interstate 95 in Gainesville FL. , which featured scantily clad dancers...but it closed down last September.

Undaunted , he decided to set up Cafe Risque, an "adult entertainment centre" in nearby Waldo which met stiff resistance...Sullivan told Channel 4 TV that people around Waldo had tried everything from prayer to protest to keep him from opening the restaurant.

Things came to a head when someone used a home made device to flood the premises with a noxious but non-lethal and unidentified gas.

"It comes under domestic terrorism, we're going to look at it as such," said serious looking Alachua County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Keith Faulk. "We're going to prosecute to the fullest extent as we can."

Officials said use of such a device is a first-degree felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

The store, which will sell adult magazines, videos and sex toys, is set to open in a couple of months.

"You don't want to hear what I got to say; you couldn't print it on TV," Sullivan said. "I'm coming; this business is coming. It's legal and coming. OK?"

However Jerry Sullivan, who would have turned 48 this Friday, was found dead on Sunday morning by his 14-year-old son.

The Alachua County Sheriff's Office is waiting for the results of an autopsy for his cause of death, but said it does not suspect foul play.