St. Pat's 'firebug' had tix to Rome
Gas-can guy’s ‘1-way getaway’ plan
The New Jersey man who walked into St. Patrick’s Cathedral with canisters of gasoline and lighters just two days after the Notre Dame inferno had bought a one-way plane ticket to Rome, police said Thursday.
Marc Lamparello, of Hasbrouck Heights, was charged with attempted arson, reckless endangerment and trespassing and was hit with other violations involving the transport of flammable materials in connection with the Wednesday-night incident, authorities said.
Police said Lamparello, 37, hoped to leave Thursday for Italy but instead spent the day in cuffs and later at Bellevue Hospital Center, where he was being evaluated after being charged.
Dressed in black, Lamparello put his head down and said nothing as he was escorted out of the Midtown North station house. Authorities did not give a motive for the incident.
Lamparello — a doctoral philosophy student at CUNY’s Graduate Center and published author who recently taught the subject at two city colleges — arrived near St. Pat’s at around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. Security cameras captured his minivan circling the block, police said.
At 7:55 p.m., he opened the door to the van and took out two cans of gasoline, two containers of lighter fluid and a bag containing the lighters, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller told reporters.
Moments later, Lamparello entered the 140year-old, blocklong neoGothic cathedral but was quickly approached by an usher who told him he couldn’t bring the gas inside.
Lamparello then put the canisters down and some gas spilled on the floor before he picked them up and left. The usher flagged officers, who took Lamparello into custody.
Lamparello had gotten into trouble at a church earlier this week.
On Monday, he was taken into custody by New Jersey police after he refused to leave the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark when the Gothic Revival house of worship was closing.
Lamparello’s lawyer, Chris DiLorenzo, declined to comment Thursday.
Lamparello, who taught a course at Brooklyn College last year, will be fired from his part-time gig as an online philosophy professor at Lehman College in The Bronx, a school rep said.
He has been treated for psychiatric problems in the past, according to sources who say family members told investigators he’s not taking his medication.