The former CUNY professor accused of trying to set St. Patrick’s Cathedral ablaze tragically committed suicide last week after he was released from Rikers Island amid the coronavirus outbreak — and given no mental health support, according to his grieving family.
Marc Lamparello, 38, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, was freed March 20 by Justice Steven Statsinger due to the public health crisis sweeping through city jails, according to his criminal defense lawyer Chris DiLorenzo. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office consented.
As a condition of his release, he was ordered to participate in an outpatient program at Bergen New Bridge Medical Center — but one month later, after receiving no psychiatric care — he jumped off the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, according to his family and lawyer.
“The hospital dropped the ball tremendously,” said his mother Dolores Lamparello, of Hasbrouck Heights, NJ. “They did nothing. My son went a whole month without any treatment whatsoever. They cost my son his life.”
Lamparello was arrested in April 2019 after he allegedly entered St. Pat’s carrying two cans of gasoline and a lighter while off his schizophrenia medications.
The accused firebug — a PhD candidate at CUNY at the time — was fired as an adjunct Lehman College professor following his arrest.
Less than a week after Lamparello walked out of Rikers, Dolores said she dropped him off at New Bridge Medical Center, where he was scheduled to attend a daily outpatient program from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. But two hours later, he came home.
“He was told he had to quarantine for two weeks and was later dropped as a patient without explanation,” she said.
Lamparello, who had been in custody for almost a year when he got out, was distraught.
“Mom, I need structure,” he told her, according to the mom. “I can’t do nothing.”
She and his caseworker kept trying to get him reinstated into the program and were instructed to fill out a new application. But, on April 9, after he had completed quarantine, he was again rejected without explanation, Dolores said.
The next day, Lamparello borrowed his mom’s car, drove to the George Washington Bridge and climbed more than halfway up the fence as drivers frantically called 911.
Fort Lee police coaxed him down and took him to the emergency room at New Bridge Medical Center, where he was committed to the psychiatric ward for four days, Dolores said.
When he came home April 15, he seemed fine, Dolores said.
And on Friday, the family got some good news — the outpatient program at Bergen New Bridge Medical Center had finally reinstated him, with sessions beginning Monday and conducted on Zoom due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Dolores told her son and he seemed pleased, she said. Later that morning, he told his mom he felt cooped up in the house and wanted to get a bagel with cream cheese.
“I said, ‘Marc, please be careful and come back soon, I don’t want to worry,’ ” she recalled telling him.
It was the last time she saw him.
He called the house a few hours later to check in and said he’d taken a drive since it was such a beautiful day.
Around 3 p.m. Dolores grew concerned and repeatedly dialed his phone but got no answer.
“I was so worried,” she told The Post, weeping.
By then he’d already been dead an hour.
That evening, the police called and told them that Marc had jumped from the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge at 2 p.m.
“We were crushed,” she said. “If he got the treatment he needed, he would still be here.”
A spokesman for the Manhattan DA’s Office said that they had endorsed Lamparello’s release over concerns he could be exposed to COVID-19 in jail and because he had been accepted into a mental health treatment program.
His case had already been diverted to mental health court, where defendants typically receive treatment rather than prison time.
“We send our condolences and sympathy to Mr. Lamparello’s loved ones,” a rep for New Bridge said in a statement.
“While we cannot discuss specifics, the individual referenced had involvement with a variety of medical, psychiatric and law enforcement agencies. His interactions with our facility and the treatment we provided followed our protocols.”
Additional reporting by Lorena Mongelli