In the latest example of how unhinged things have become, a Minnesota man was arrested after allegedly showing up at a federal jail in New York and claiming he was an FBI agent there to free an accused murderer. Yes, really.
According to a criminal complaint filed Thursday, 36-year-old Mark Anderson of Mankato allegedly walked into the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on Wednesday night and told Bureau of Prisons staff he had a court order from a judge to release Luigi Mangione. Mangione, for those keeping track, is the man accused of m**dering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in cold blood.
When officers did the obvious thing and asked Anderson for credentials, he reportedly produced a Minnesota driver’s license. That was it. No badge. No federal ID. Just a driver’s license and a whole lot of confidence. Anderson also allegedly told officers he had weapons in the bag he was carrying, which probably did not help his case.
Inside the bag, authorities found what can only be described as budget cosplay gear, a barbecue fork and a circular steel blade resembling a pizza cutter. If this were a movie, people would complain it was too unrealistic. According to the complaint, Anderson also threw a stack of documents at officers. An FBI agent later wrote that the papers appeared to be related to filing claims against the Department of Justice, which raises even more questions about what exactly was going on inside this guy’s head.
Anderson was arrested and charged with impersonating an FBI agent. He was scheduled to appear in federal court in Brooklyn on Thursday afternoon. The complaint itself does not name the inmate Anderson was allegedly trying to free, but a law enforcement official confirmed it was Mangione.
Mangione, 27, is facing both state and federal charges for the killing of Brian Thompson, a Minnesota resident and the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the largest private health insurer in the country. Prosecutors allege Mangione stalked Thompson and then shot him on December 4, 2024, as Thompson walked into a Manhattan hotel for a company investor event. Mangione was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He has pleaded not guilty.
Federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, and a judge could decide as soon as this week whether the case will proceed as a capital prosecution. State prosecutors just asked a judge to schedule Mangione’s murder trial for July, adding even more weight to the situation.
As for Anderson, officials say he had traveled to New York for a job that fell through and ended up working at a pizzeria. Somewhere between tossing dough and tossing legal papers at federal officers, he apparently decided impersonating the FBI was a good idea.
It was not.
Oh come on. He had watched so many pubic figures get away with pretending. Dems pretending Biden was fit for office, Harris pretending she was qualified to be President. Don Lemon pretending to be a journalist…
He just didn’t realize those people have the MSM to prop them up….