TOWN OF WALLKILL — A Town of Wallkill man and Indian national has sued a New Jersey luxury car dealership in federal court for $1.26 million, claiming it refused to sell him a Mercedes-Benz for fear he might ship it to the Taliban.

Surjeet Bassi, 50, claims that on June 3 Prestige Motors Inc. in Bergen County, N.J., refused to sell him a GLS550 Mercedes-Benz SUV. He said the manager cited concern that he would export the vehicle to the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist and terrorist organization.

Bassi, who owns Orange County Medi-Coach in Middletown, said he went into the luxury car dealership with his business partner, Deepak Kumar, to trade in his Mercedes-Benz ML350 for a newer model. He said he chose the Bergen County dealership because it had a better price on the SUV, plus the black interior that he wanted.

Bassi said he spent several hours at the shop negotiating a price with a salesman, who Bassi said treated him respectfully. After passing a credit check, charging a $1,000 downpayment and showing Prestige his personal bank statements, he said they finally came to a deal. Bassi said he even called his insurance company to switch the new car onto his policy and the car was being driven from their Nyack dealership.

That's when a manager called them into his office.

"He said, 'I'm sorry I can't sell you the car,'" Bassi said.

Several emails and phone calls to Prestige Motors' Bergen County office were not returned. A manager who picked up the phone hung up on a reporter when asked about the incident.

Bassi said the manager told him that he came from a "high-risk area" where people buy cars and export them to the Taliban. Bassi, who has lived in the region for 30 years, said he told him he was Indian and not connected in any way to the Taliban.

A search by the Times Herald-Record of Bassi's name on a federal database of those banned from exporting turned up nothing. Bassi said the manager did the same search of Bassi's name, address and telephone and came up empty, too.

He said he was even willing to sign a waiver, as he had done before, promising not to export the car for three years.

"I said, 'Give me the paper, I'll sign it,'" Bassi said. "I had a Mercedes already, if I wanted wanted to export it I would sell that one."

But Prestige refused, Bassi said. He said the implication that he would sell or be associated with terrorists hurt him.

"Heartbroken," he said. "I couldn't tell you how bad I felt that day."

Bassi's attorney, Michael Sussman from Goshen, said the case is part of a larger pattern of discrimination against immigrants and those who look different.

"This is an instance of the madness we've come to," Sussman said.

Sussman has brought the case in the Southern District of New York for what he said is "blatant racial discrimination" as well as refusing to extend credit under the federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act. Prestige Motors' website says it's one of the premier and largest Mercedes dealerships in the country, serving the area for more than 45 years.

In 2014, a story in The New York Times said that New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was investigating Prestige over allegations of kickbacks being paid to its dealership salesmen in connection to a broader national probe into the exporting of luxury vehicles to China.

Though the story said a half-dozen salesmen were fired after an internal investigation by Prestige, Schneiderman's office never brought charges against the luxury dealership.

jnani@th-record.com