ARANSAS PASS - The man accused of scheming to kill a Saudi diplomat is described by those who know him as a scatterbrained, hapless businessman who in college earned the nickname "Jack" for his affinity for whiskey - hardly the type to mastermind a terrorist plot.

A longtime associate and former business partner of Manssor Arbabsiar said the suspect had owned a string of used car lots and other businesses in the Corpus Christi area but, if anything, seemed absentminded and shifty.

"He was pretty disorganized, always losing things like keys, titles, probably a thousand cellphones," said David Tomscha, an Aransas Pass businessman who once ran a small used-car lot with Arbabsiar. "He wasn't meticulous with taking care of things."

News that Arbabsiar was implicated in a terror plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. surprised Tomscha and others who knew him. Tomscha said Arbabsiar must have been driven by "easy, squeezy" money rather than religious or political zealotry.

"He never spoke ill of the United States," Tomscha said. "I always thought he liked it here, because he could make money. He loved to make money."

Tomscha said his acquaintance with Arbabsiar went back more than a decade, though the two had lost touch about a year ago.

Called 'a joke'

Tom Hosseini, an Iranian whose friendship with Arbabsiar dates back 30 years, went as far as calling Arbabsiar "a joke."

The two were roommates at what is now Texas A&M University-Kingsville, but Arbabsiar dropped out after two semesters and finished his degree in Louisiana.

It was Hosseini who nicknamed Arbabsiar "Jack," for the quantities of Jack Daniels whiskey Arbabsiar would drink.

"Scarface," another nickname, was for the lasting reminder of the time Arbabsiar arranged for the then-college students to party with some girls, not knowing the girls' boyfriends would arrive wielding bats and knives. Hosseini, a runner at the time, got away unscathed.

Was Arbabsiar religious?

"He couldn't even pray, doesn't know how to fast. He used to drink, smoke pot, go with the prostitutes," Hosseini said, laughing with a clerk at his market in downtown Corpus Christi. "His first wife left him because he would lose his keys every other day ... This guy is not a mastermind."

Hosseini said the only motivation for Arbabsiar's role in the alleged plot, which he doubted, would be money. "Money can change people's mind."

Arbabsiar was likable, Hosseini added, friendly and happy, the type who would give a bum on the street money if he had it.

"Jack's cool," said Jud Jones, owner of the used car lot that Arbabsiar once owned with Tomscha.

"You want to know who Jack is?" He pumped a visitor's hand, drawing close and saying, "How are you doing today?" in a sugary voice to demonstrate Arbabsiar's charm.

"That's Jack," he said.

Didn't speak of politics

Arbabsiar associated with a close-knit group of Iranian immigrants and made a trip to Iran about once a year, Tomscha said. He never spoke of religion or politics.

"I would not think of this as something he thought of," Tomscha said.

Those who knew Arbabsiar joked that it was his second wife, Martha, who kept his affairs in any semblance of order.

"They say he'd be homeless and out on the streets if it wasn't for Martha," Tomscha said.

The used car partnership proved a flop when Arbabsiar quit paying his end and the business went into foreclosure. Tomscha ended up banging on Arbabsiar's door for the money, he said, and Arbabsiar pretended not to be there.

While Arbabsiar lived in the Corpus Christi area for a while, he is believed to most recently have lived in Round Rock.

Neighbors, however, said it had been years since Arbabsiar lived in the stucco house he once shared with his wife on a suburban cul-de-sac. They said it appeared that as many as 10 people were living in the house, and lately there had been some signs of suspicious activity: When residents looked for available Wi-Fi networks, networks with names like "FBI Van 1" would pop up.

Wife disputes charges

No one answered the door at the house Wednesday, although people did come and go, avoiding the media camped outside. Arbabsiar's wife, Martha Guerrero, said they'd long been separated and that the scrutiny was taking a toll on their family, according to local news reports.

"I may not be living with him, being separated, but I cannot for the life of me think that he would be capable of doing that," said Guerrero, according to Austin's KVUE News. "He was at the wrong place at the wrong time, I'm sure of that, and I know that his innocence is going to come out."

Terri Gonzalez, 59, who lives next door to where Arbabsiar lived with his family, said they didn't interact much with neighbors in the suburban Austin neighborhood. Residents regularly attended their children's birthdays and holiday parties, Gonzalez said, but in the seven or eight years they've lived on the block, Arbabsiar and his family never took part. She said no one thought there was anything unusual about Arbabsiar, his wife or their three sons, who in years past had friends over to the house. "We thought they were just a normal family who didn't want to be social," she said.

Staff writer Jason Buch contributed to this report from Round Rock.

lbrezosky@express-news.net