A man was arrested on Wednesday evening after he impersonated an F.B.I. agent at a federal jail in Brooklyn while carrying a pizza cutter, saying he had a court order for the release of Luigi Mangione, according to a criminal complaint and people familiar with the episode.
The man, Mark Anderson, originally from Mankato, Minn., appeared in federal court in Brooklyn on Thursday and was charged with impersonating an F.B.I. agent. A judge ordered him detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center, the same jail that houses Mr. Mangione, who is charged with murder in the 2024 fatal shooting of a health care executive.
According to the complaint, filed by federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York, Mr. Anderson arrived at the jail around 6:50 p.m. on Wednesday and told jail officers that he was an F.B.I. agent with paperwork “signed by a judge,” authorizing the release of an inmate.
He was asked for his credentials and provided a Minnesota driver’s license. Mr. Anderson then said he had weapons and began throwing documents at the jail officers. The documents were related to suing the U.S. Justice Department, according to the complaint. He was found to be carrying the pizza cutter along with a barbecue fork.
Mr. Anderson, 36, had worked at a pizzeria in the Bronx on and off for about a year, according to his former employer.
In court on Thursday, Mr. Anderson wore a gray fleece and appeared jittery. He shuffled court papers and spoke animatedly to his court-appointed lawyer, Michael Weil.
Jack Dennehy, a federal prosecutor, argued that Mr. Anderson should be detained because of a criminal history that included drug charges and aggravated robbery. Mr. Anderson had two open cases in the Bronx, Mr. Dennehy said, including one in which he was charged with flashing a pistol.
Mr. Mangione’s name did not come up during the proceeding before Judge Taryn A. Merkl. But Mr. Dennehy obliquely referred to the person Mr. Anderson was there to free as a “specific inmate” with notoriety.
“He’s actually very well known,” Mr. Dennehy said with a smirk.
Mr. Weil said his client was “very alone in this world” and had not been raised by his biological family. He had been in the “system” since he was 13, the lawyer said.
“Mr. Anderson obviously needs some sort of treatment,” Mr. Weil said. “I don’t think this was a serious effort to free someone from prison.”
Mr. Mangione, 27, has been deluged with support since his arrest in the murder of the health care executive, Brian Thompson. Many people have contributed to his legal defense fund and have sent him letters, books and personal photographs at the Metropolitan Detention Center. His defense fund had collected about $1.4 million as of Thursday.
The adulation surrounding Mr. Mangione has horrified many Americans who were shocked by the assassination of Mr. Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, in December 2024. Mr. Mangione has been charged with murder in both federal and state court.
The authorities have said Mr. Mangione waited outside a Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan for nearly an hour until Mr. Thompson arrived for an investors’ gathering. According to prosecutors, Mr. Mangione immediately left New York after the killing, scattering his belongings across the city as he escaped.
When he was arrested in Altoona, Pa., the authorities found what they have characterized as a manifesto denouncing America’s system of for-profit health care and the “parasites” of the insurance industry.
Since his arrest, Mr. Mangione has become a symbol of widespread frustration with the health care system. People rallied outside his court hearings in Manhattan. Supporters sat in courtrooms’ back rows, many wearing their signature color, green.
The troubled jail in which Mr. Mangione is being held — and where Mr. Anderson will be, too — is one of the country’s most notorious federal lockups, plagued with staffing issues, violence, unsanitary conditions and electrical outages. Since 2024, more than 30 inmates and guards at the jail have been charged with federal crimes involving smuggling and violence.
In addition to Mr. Mangione, high-profile inmates including the crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried and Nicolás Maduro, the former Venezuelan leader who was captured by U.S. forces earlier this month, are detained there.
Near the end of the hearing Thursday, Mr. Anderson addressed the judge directly and asked that body camera footage from his arrest be sealed for his “personal benefit.”
Sandra Koperski, Mr. Anderson’s stepmother, said in a phone interview that news of his arrest had come “out of left field, because I talked to him about four days or a week ago.” She said she had tried unsuccessfully to reach him Wednesday night after he told his mother that he was going to check himself into a mental health facility.
Mr. Anderson had moved to the Pelham Bay neighborhood of the Bronx and was working last year at Louie & Ernie’s Pizza, according to Ms. Koperski. He struggled with his mental health in recent years and his condition worsened when he was taking illicit drugs, she said, adding that he would send incoherent messages that were at times threatening.
“It really — it throws me for a loop,” she said.
Cosimo Tiso, Mr. Anderson’s boss at the pizza shop on Crosby Avenue, said he had worked there until about April.
“Never showed any type of thing that he was unstable until the very end,” Mr. Tiso said.
Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
Hurubie Meko is a Times reporter covering criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state courts.
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