Man posing as FBI agent tries to free Luigi Mangione, alleged healthcare CEO killer
Armed with a barbecue fork and a pizza cutter, Mark Anderson was arrested after presenting a driving licence as federal credentials
A man claiming to be an FBI agent showed up to a federal jail in New York City on Wednesday night and told officers he had a court order to release Luigi Mangione, authorities said. He is now locked up there too.
Mark Anderson, a 36-year-old Minnesota native who has a history of drug and other arrests and disclosed last year in court papers that he suffered from mental illness, was arrested and charged with impersonating a federal officer in a foiled bid to free Mangione from the Metropolitan Detention Centre. Mangione was being held at the notorious Brooklyn jail while awaiting state and federal murder trials in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
A criminal complaint against Anderson did not identify the person he attempted to free. A law enforcement official familiar with the matter confirmed it was Mangione.
Anderson was ordered held without bail after an initial appearance on Thursday in Brooklyn federal court. He was not required to enter a plea. A day after getting stopped at the entrance, he was jailed at the Metropolitan Detention Centre, according to federal prison records.
According to the criminal complaint, Anderson approached the jail intake area around 6.50pm on Wednesday and told uniformed jail officers that he was an FBI agent in possession of paperwork “signed by a judge” authorising the release of a specific person in custody at the jail.
When the officers asked for his federal credentials, Anderson showed them a Minnesota driving licence, threw documents at them and claimed to have weapons, the criminal complaint said.