Law enforcement confirmed the identity of the man who set himself on fire outside of former President Donald Trump's trial on Friday as Maxwell Azzarello, a 37-year-old man who has lived in St. Augustine, Florida.
Law enforcement responded to the courthouse at about 1:37 p.m. ET for a report of a man who was on fire. He was taken to an area hospital in critical condition, and an investigation is ongoing, a spokesperson for the New York Police Department told Newsweek Friday afternoon. There is not believed to be a further threat to public safety at this time.
Newsweek reporter Katherine Fung, who has been reporting from inside the courtroom all week, said the man was holding a sign before the incident, which included a link to a Substack site.
The NYPD spokesperson confirmed that law enforcement was looking into the Substack page, which laid out a number of his political views, particularly his concerns about Ponzi schemes. Details about his Substack post quickly spread across social media Friday afternoon.
"This extreme act of protest is to draw attention to an urgent and important discovery: We are victims of a totalitarian con, and our own government (along with many of their allies) is about to hit us with an apocalyptic fascist world coup," the page reads.
The post does not discuss the trial of the former president.
According to a report from The New York Times, he doused himself with accelerant at about 1:35 p.m. in Collect Pond Park, located just across the street from the courthouse, after throwing pamphlets in the air.
The exact contents of the pamphlets remained unknown, but the Times reported that they made references to former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Al Gore, and attorney David Boies.
A LinkedIn profile that appears to be Azzarello identifies him as a self-employed research investigator who attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 2005 and 2009, and later attended Rutgers University from 2010 to 2012, receiving a Master's in City and Regional Planning.
According to the profile, Azzarello held a number of positions at various businesses, including working on two Democratic congressional campaigns, since his graduation. He most recently worked at OpenTent from December 2020 to October 2021, according to the profile.
His LinkedIn profile reads that he "fell into a rabbit hole and learned all the secrets of the world" after Silicon Valley Bank collapsed last year and that he believes "cryptocurrency is our first planetary multi-trillion dollar Ponzi scheme."
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, text "988" to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or go to 988lifeline.org.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Andrew Stanton is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in Maine. His role is reporting on U.S. politics and social issues. ... Read more
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