Man Who Set Himself On Fire Outside Trump’s NYC Trial Has Died After Succumbing To Burn Injuries

The man who set himself on fire outside Donald Trump's NYC hush money trial courthouse, Max Azzarello, has reportedly died.

Azzarello was initially rushed to a nearby hospital and "intubated" after first responders successfully put out the fire on his body.

He has now been branded a "conspiracy theorist" and even left behind a political manifesto detailing his motive for self-immolating.

According to a report, Azzarello eventually succumbed to his burn injuries and was declared dead by the staff at the area hospital he was rushed to after self-immolating outside the courthouse where Trump's hush money trial was being held.

Azzarello reportedly traveled from Florida to New York and had been protesting outside Trump's trial, with placards implying that he was against both the former president and current President, Joe Biden.

Eyewitnesses outside the courthouse saw Azzarello throw pamphlets he was holding into the air before dousing himself with a liquid and setting himself ablaze. At the time of the shocking incident, CNN reporter Laura Coates, who was on the scene, stated that a "man has set fire to himself" and switched the network cameras to show the fire in the park across the street.

Coates revealed that the entire area, which descended into chaos due to the shocking incident, was heavy with the smell of burning flesh.

After Azzarello was rushed to a hospital, a political manifesto detailing his reason for self-immolating surfaced. He allegedly maintained a Substack page titled "The Ponzi Papers," with his latest entry titled: "I have set myself on fire outside the Trump Trial."

In the opening lines, Azzarello deemed his actions an "extreme act of protest" to spotlight a discovery he had made.

He wrote: "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."

In Azzarello's lengthy manifesto, he boldly asserted that "we are victims of a totalitarian con, and our government (along with many of their allies) is about to hit us with an apocalyptic fascist world coup."

The manifesto includes references to a complex conspiracy involving cryptocurrencies and governmental collusion, echoing themes from the late man's recent social media activity.

"I hope you know how powerful you are. I wish you a hell of a lot more than luck," Azzarello concluded.

Azzarello's social media page was also riddled with claims about the government plotting against its citizens and a video of him calling for "a revolution."

The sickening incident unfolded just as Judge Juan Merchan was going on recess for lunch on the third day of ex-president Trump's criminal hush money trial, near a section of the plaza where small groups of protesters had been gathering daily since the trial began on Monday.

Video footage from the scene showed Azzarello kneeling on the ground, with his arms waving wildly as flames consumed his flesh. Television commentators narrated the incident as several police officers and civilians rushed towards him to help extinguish the fire.

Amid the chaos, one individual attempted to smother the flames with a coat or blanket while another wielded a fire extinguisher. Azzarello looked motionless after the fire was extinguished and was subsequently attended to by paramedics.

One of the bystanders who witnessed the event expressed shock, stating, "He made a noise, and he threw all those pamphlets. It's shocking. There are some people crying in the park. There's just nothing you can do."

Shortly after the fire incident, Azzarello was branded a conspiracy theorist by the authorities, who likely took into account the information on the pamphlet he had on him before setting himself on fire and his online activity.

The NYPD chief of detectives, Joseph Kenny, noted that Azzarello, who hails from St. Augustine, Florida, had no criminal history in New York and was not previously known to authorities.

Tarik Sheppard, deputy commissioner of the NYPD, emphasized that detectives did not perceive Azzarello's actions as targeting any specific individual or group, including Trump or his supporters.

"We just right now labeled him as a sort of conspiracy theorist, and we'll go from there, but the investigation will continue," Sheppard said, per The Guardian.