Man accused of posing as FBI agent in apparent attempt to spring Luigi Mangione from prison

A Minnesota man was charged Thursday with impersonating an FBI agent after he showed up at a federal prison in New York City claiming to have a court order to release an inmate, identified by a law enforcement source as accused killer Luigi Mangione.

Mark Anderson, 35, was arrested at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn late Wednesday after prison workers asked to see his credentials and he produced a Minnesota driver’s license and “claimed to be in possession of weapons,” according to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Anderson also claimed “that he was an FBI Agent in possession of paperwork ‘signed by a judge’ authorizing the release of a specific inmate,” the complaint says.

The court document does not name the inmate.

“Anderson also displayed and threw at [Bureau of Prisons] officers numerous documents,” the complaint says. “They appear to be related to filing claims against the United States Department of Justice.”

In his backpack, BOP workers found a barbecue fork and a “round steel blade” that resembled a pizza cutter.

Anderson had traveled to New York from Minnesota for a job opportunity that didn’t work out, and he had been working at a pizzeria, the law enforcement source said.

Anderson was ordered detained Thursday after a magistrate judge found that he posed a flight risk, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York said.

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate locator, Anderson is housed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

His court-appointed federal public defender did not respond to a request for comment.

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Mangione, 27, has been at the federal lockup in Brooklyn since December 2024, after he was arrested and accused of ambushing and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in midtown Manhattan.

Charged in New York with second-degree murder, Mangione has also been charged with four federal counts: two of stalking, one of murder and one of using a firearm to commit murder.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in April that the government would seek the death penalty for “an act of political violence” and a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”

Then, in August, federal prosecutors argued in a filing that Mangione poses a threat to the public because he is actively seeking to influence others to follow in his footsteps.

“Simply put, the defendant hoped to normalize the use of violence to achieve ideological or political objectives,” they said in the document. “Since the murder, certain quarters of the public — who openly identify as acolytes of the defendant — have increasingly begun to view violence as an acceptable, or even necessary, substitute for reasoned political disagreement.”

Since his arrest, Mangione's legal defense fund has raised more than a million dollars in donations as people angry with the country’s for-profit medical system have voiced their support.