The man who set himself on fire near the courthouse in New York City where former President Donald Trump is on trial has died, authorities said. According to his manifesto, the Florida man was allegedly an anti-government conspiracy theorist.
Around 1:30 p.m. on Friday, 37-year-old Max Azzarello was reportedly espousing conspiracy theories and tossing colorful pamphlets around Manhattan’s Collect Pond Park, according to NYPD Chief of Department James Maddrey.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said, “The pamphlets seem to be propaganda-based almost like a conspiracy theory type of pamphlets. Some information in regards to Ponzi schemes, and the fact that some of our local educational institutes are a front for the mob. So a little bit of a conspiracy theory going on here.”
Azzarello – from St. Augustine, Florida – was across the street from the courthouse where Trump’s criminal trial was being held. He had not breached any security checkpoints to access the park.
Azzarello was allegedly holding a sign with a link to a Substack site that featured his manifesto.
He then doused himself in fire accelerant and lit himself ablaze with a lighter in front of horrified witnesses.
Police officers and bystanders rushed to help the man who had just set himself on fire. The self-immolation lasted several minutes until officers could extinguish the flames.
The horrific incident lasted several minutes before the flames were extinguished by police officers and court staff.
Azzarello was rushed to a local hospital in critical condition. However, he later died from his injuries around 10:30 p.m. on Friday, police said.
Azzarello had reportedly driven from Florida and arrived in New York a few days ago.
A letter was found at the burn site that reads: “I have set myself on fire outside the Trump Trial.”
The Substack website reads: “My name is Max Azzarello, and I am an investigative researcher who has set himself on fire outside of the Trump trial in Manhattan.”
“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,” he wrote.
Azzarello claimed in his manifesto that the U.S. government is wrapped up in “Ponzi schemes” as a method to control the American people.
“These claims sound like fantastical conspiracy theory, but they are not,” Azzarello’s Substack post reads. “They are proof of conspiracy. If you investigate this mountain of research, you will prove them too. If you learn a great deal about Ponzi schemes, you will discover that our life is a lie.”
Azzarello was reportedly arrested three times in Florida last year.
One of his arrests stemmed from an August incident where he purportedly threw a wine glass at a framed autograph featuring Bill Clinton at a hotel, according to police records.
“The wine glass broke, spreading wine on the frame, the wall, and the autograph,” the report claimed. “…The wine stained the autograph and the surrounding wall when it ran down behind the frame.”
Two days later, Azzarello was arrested again for allegedly stripping down to his boxers and yelling at customers at the same hotel in Florida. An officer said he ventured into a fountain and cursed at hotel patrons “in an intimidating manner.”
He was hit with misdemeanor charges of criminal mischief and disturbing the peace, the New York Post reported.
The police report said that he was unemployed and suicidal.
In April 2023, Azzarello filed a lawsuit in New York against the Clinton Foundation. The lawsuit also named billionaire Mark Cuban and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Newsweek reported, “Azzarello, who was representing himself, alleged in the suit that the defendants ‘knowingly conspired, participated in, and benefited financially from a decades-long fraudulent scheme.'”
Azzarello claimed that “money was solicited internationally laundered in support of the scheme via the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation [as it was formerly known], which was created for this purpose by President Bill Clinton and Doug Band in 2001.”
In February, an active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. The man said he was engaging in an “extreme” act of protest against Israel invading Gaza after the Hamas terrorist attack of Oct. 7, 2023.
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