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Pistons Owner Harassed At Home, $1M Demanded

The celebrity website TMZ is reporting that Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores, one of the richest men in the country, was targeted for harassment in a strange incident.

Two men allegedly made their way into Gores' exclusive gated community in California, knocked on his door at 10 p.m. Sunday, and Gores himself answered.  

The men wanted the billionaire to accept a package; He refused. Eventually, after a reported verbal skirmish, the men left, trailing behind a package with papers inside demanding $1 million cash for the Mormon church.

Gores, 46,  is the chairman and CEO of Platinum Equity, a global investment firm whose holdings include 34 portfolio companies in technology, media and entertainment, industrials, metals processing, automotive supply, and distribution and logistics. He was announced as the Pistons' new owner in April 2011.

Born in Israel, Gores moved to Michigan at age of four when his family settled into Genesee, north of Flint. He was exposed to the business world at an early age, working in his uncle's grocery store by the time he was 10.
 
A three-sport athlete at Genesee High School, Gores graduated from Michigan State University in Construction Management and learned the buyout business with his older brother, forming Platinum Equity investments in 1995.

Today, he is estimated by Forbes to be the 147th-richest American having amassed a $2.2 billion fortune — and ownership of the Pistons.

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