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A judge ordered Marc Lamparello, 38, to participate in an outpatient program at Bergen New Bridge Medical Center after releasing him on March 20 as part of an effort to stem the rapid spread of COVID-19 through the city jail system.
Lamparello jumped from Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge last Friday, a week after police prevented a similar suicide try at the George Washington Bridge.
City police last April arrested Lamparello, an East Rutherford native who'd been staying at a hotel in the city, after finding him carrying two cans of gasoline, two cans of lighter fluid and a lighter into St. Patrick’s.
He was also carrying a one-way ticket to Rome and earlier that same week was arrested by Essex County sheriff's officers at Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark after he threw himself on the floor and refused to leave.
Charges of attempted arson and reckless endangerment in the St. Patrick’s arrest cost the adjunct professor his positions at Lehman College in the Bronx and Seton Hall University.
A judge later found Lamparello unfit to stand trial because of schizophrenia.
Dolores Lamparello told the New York Post that her son returned from a daily outpatient program at Bergen New Bridge late last month saying he had to quarantine for two weeks.
She told the Post he was later dropped as a patient without explanation.
The GWB suicide try landed him back at Bergen New Bridge for four days, after which he returned home seemingly fine, she said.
The hospital’s outpatient program reinstated him, with sessions scheduled to begin this past Monday on Zoom because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
By that point, her son had gone without treatment for nearly a month, Dolores Lamparello told the Post.
It was the last time she saw him, she said.
“We were crushed,” she said. “If he got the treatment he needed, he would still be here.”
Bergen New Bridge officials, in a statement, offered “condolences and sympathy to Mr. Lamparello’s loved ones.”
“While we cannot discuss specifics, the individual referenced had involvement with a variety of medical, psychiatric and law enforcement agencies,” they added. “His interactions with our facility and the treatment we provided followed our protocols.”
Lamporello was graduated in 2004 from Boston College with a degree in philosophy. He got his master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania and spent a semester at Oxford University.
He lectured at Seton Hall, Lehman and Brooklyn College and reportedly was studying to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy at CUNY.
The night of the incident at St. Patrick's, Lamparello parked a minivan in front of Saks on Fifth Avenue, "left the car there for some time and walked around the area," Deputy NYPD Commissioner John Miller said at the time.
He later returned and removed a pair of two-gallon plastic cans of gasoline, a plastic bag with two bags of charcoal fluid and two extended lighters, Miller said.
The iconic landmark across from Rockefeller Center was open, with people inside, when a security officer stopped Lamparello at the entrance, Miller said. READ MORE….
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NEED HELP? Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 24/7, at 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
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