Law enforcement has identified the man who set himself on fire outside the courthouse where Donald Trump's trial is underway, throwing conspiracy leaflets into the air. This is MaxwellAzzarello, 37 years old, resident in St. Augustine, Florida.
According to Newsweek, before the incident the man held a sign with a link to the Substack site where there were some of his conspiracy political ideas. "This extreme act of protest aims to draw attention to an urgent and important discovery: we are victims of a totalitarian scam and our own government (along with many of its allies) is hitting us with an apocalyptic fascist global coup," the page reads .
A LinkedIn profile that appears to be that of Azzarello identifies him as a self-employed researcher who attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 2005 to 2009, and subsequently attended Rutgers University from 2010 to 2012, earning a Master's Degree in Urban and Regional Planning. According to the profile, Azzarello held numerous positions at various companies, and reportedly worked with two Democratic campaigns for Congress after his graduation.
He most recently worked at OpenTent from December 2020 to October 2021. His alleged profile also states that he "learned all the secrets of the world" after the collapse of SiliconValley Bank last year and that he believes "cryptocurrency is our first Ponzi scheme (a multi-trillion dollar planetary fraudulent scheme."