A pizza cutter-toting lunatic posed as an FBI agent in a botched bid to spring Luigi Mangione out of his notorious Brooklyn jail, federal prosecutors said Thursday.
Minnesota native Mark Anderson, 36, approached the intake area at the Metropolitan Detention Center just before 7 p.m. Wednesday night, according to court records and law enforcement sources.
Anderson — a New York City pizzeria worker — allegedly made the head-scratching claim that he had an order “signed by a judge” to free the accused cold-blooded killer, who is being held without bail.
When asked to show his credentials, Anderson allegedly took out a Mankato, Minn. driver’s license, and said that he had weapons in his bag.
Staff guarding the intake area then searched the bag and found a BBQ fork and a “round steel blade” that resembled a pizza cutter inside, court papers said.
After throwing a stack of papers at Bureau of Prisons staffers, Anderson was promptly arrested and charged with impersonating an FBI agent.
Anderson had moved to the Big Apple for a job opportunity that fell through, and had recently been working at a pizza parlor, according to a law enforcement source. What pizza eatery he worked at was not immediately clear.
He was set to make his first appearance in court Thursday afternoon.
The bizarre alleged episode unfolded days before Mangione, 27, was set to appear on Friday in Manhattan federal court for a pre-trial conference in his headline-grabbing case.
The University of Pennsylvania graduate is charged with executing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Midtown sidewalk on Dec. 4, 2024, outside the healthcare giant’s annual investor conference.
Mangione had written in his notebook about his desire to “wack” Thompson in a targeted hit inspired by what he called UnitedHealthcare’s “parasitic” practice of denying claims, according to prosecutors.
He has pleaded not guilty.
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