‘Pious’ man arrested with flammable liquids and lighters inside New York cathedral
- Suspect claimed he was taking a short cut through the house of worship after his car ran out of petrol on Madison Avenue
- After arrest, man was sent for a psychiatric evaluation, interrupting his plans to fly to Rome
A pious ex-parish music director went from dutiful Catholic to criminal suspect on Thursday.
Marc Lamparello, 37, of Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, was charged with attempted arson, trespassing and reckless endangerment less than 24 hours after he was grabbed outside St Patrick’s Cathedral with containers of petrol and lighter fuel and two butane lighters.
The defendant was later taken to Bellevue Hospital for a psychiatric exam, interrupting his plans to board a Thursday night flight to Rome, sources told The New York Daily News. But his strange fall from grace actually started two days earlier on the other side of the Hudson River.
On Monday night, Lamparello was arrested on a charge of defiant trespass inside the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, New Jersey, where he attended evening mass then refused to leave unless police put him in handcuffs.
