Convicted Marin Stroia collapsed and had to be wheeled out of a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, courtroom on a stretcher Thursday morning after he drank a liquid he claimed was poison when a jury found him guilty of armed trespass.
This isn’t the first time Marin Stroia has caused commotion at the Broward County Courthouse. When the 60-year-old man was taken to the hospital, he was on trial for sneaking a gun into court last year, sitting down and threatening to shoot himself over child support issues.
It’s unclear from Thursday’s incident whether Marin Stroia really tried to take his own life. He was seen drinking a clear liquid from an aspirin bottle, though before he collapsed, he told a court guard the drink was not actually poison.
Marin Stroia was listed in good condition at a local hospital Thursday afternoon.
While the jury was deliberating on Marin Stroia’s charges of armed trespass and criminal display of a weapon, he took out a photograph of his son and showed it to defense attorney Maury Halperin, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.
When the jury returned with a guilty verdict, as his fate was being read out in court, he drank from a large aspirin bottle. He told a courtroom bailiff it was poison.
Marin Stroia later recanted the story and told the deputy he had not quaffed poison.
However, when he was being led away from his lawyer, Marin Stroia stumbled and fell to the floor.
The judge summoned paramedics who took him from the courtroom in a stretcher.
In January 2011, Marin Stroia brought a gun into the Broward County Courthouse, sat down on the floor in the lobby and put a gun beneath his chin.
The courthouse was evacuated as Judge Joel T. Lazarus talked Marin Stroia out of killing himself.
The former security guard faces five years in prison.
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