Max Azzarello, a 37-year-old man from Florida, who set himself ablaze outside a New York courthouse where former president Donald Trump's hush-money trial is going on, succumbed to severe burn injuries on Friday. Azzarello's life was mired with controversies as he was arrested in three cases and served a 180-day probation last year before being released from custody.
On Friday, Azzarello threw a stack of pamphlets in the air before he poured fuel on his body and set himself on fire outside the courthouse in front of horrified witnesses.
Following the incident, police shifted Azzarello to a nearby hospital's burn unit in an ambulance. The man was in a critical condition and succumbed to his injuries after some time, police said.
The 37-year-old travelled to New York City from Florida without his family's knowledge and had been protesting in front of the courthouse where he slammed Democrat and Republican leaders, The New York Post reported.
He was active on social media and called himself an 'investigative researcher'. However, his constant rants and controversial posts earned him the moniker, 'conspiracy theorist'.
Before setting himself on fire, Azzarello wrote a 2,700-word manifesto on Substack, an American email newsletter platform, saying, "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 said.
According to police records, Azzarello had a suicidal tendency and was unemployed.
Azzarello's trouble began on August 19, 2023, when he was arrested for tossing a glass of wine at former president Bill Clinton's autograph framed and hanged on a wall in the lobby of Casa Monica Hotel in his hometown of Saint Augustine, Florida.
On August 21, he was again arrested for stripping off his clothes and yelling at customers outside the Casa Monica Hotel. An officer saw him allegedly getting into a fountain on a nearby property and yelling at people "in an intimidating matter". He was taken into custody, according to The New York Post.
But his outbursts did not end completely. Three days later, on August 24, Azzarello was caught on security cameras writing on a small sign before breaking a pest control sign next door, a police report said.
The defaced sign warned people that a yard had been treated and children and pets should stay away from it, the police report said.
"Azzarello was misinterpreting the sign and was telling me that the pest control company was there to exterminate children and dogs," an officer wrote in the report.
He was sentenced to 180 days of probation and remained in the St Johns County jail until October 3 last year.
About four months ago, Azzarello posted on his Instagram that he had been "protesting and breaking unwritten rules in St Augustine, taunting the cops, embracing the homeless, celebrating the freedom of leaving a cult, and begging anybody and everybody to join me in this liberation".
While his online profiles described him as an 'investigative researcher', the nature of his posts was so controversial and disturbing that he was dubbed as the 'conspiracy theorist'.
A witness spoke to Azzarello outside the New York courthouse and recalled seeing the man setting himself ablaze minutes later.
"He was just standing there, and after a minute hit the ground. By the time the cops got there, all of the fuel had burnt off of his body, and you could see his skin," said 25-year-old start-up founder William Schoeffler.
"He didn’t make too much noise, he was very quiet. Pretty horrifying," he added.
