Naked Man Threatened ‘Chemical Attack,’ Pulled Fire Alarm at FAU, Police Charge

Steven J. Barbieri (Photo: Palm Beach County Jail)

Florida Atlantic University police arrested a 52-year-old Boca Raton man for a bizarre incident in which he was alleged to have been naked on campus and pulled a fire alarm before threatening to unleash a chemical weapon from his phone charger.

The string of events played out at the university’s Culture and Society building  between about 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the school off Glades Road, starting with the university’s police department receiving a call reporting a man “nakedly walking around the area,” a police report obtained by Boca Daily News said.

After officers were unable to locate anyone matching the description, they responded to another call in reference to a fire alarm that had been pulled at the Culture and Society building, leading students and staff to begin evacuating. During the evacuation, the police report said, an officer spotted a man matching the description from the earlier call and detained him. The man, eventually identified as Steven J. Barbieri, 52, of Boca Raton, was described as wearing no shirt and dark pants.

Barbieri, after having been read his Miranda rights, allegedly admitted to police that he pulled the fire alarm. When asked why, he replied, “Because I wanted to,” the police report said. He then, police said, went on to threaten to use a “chemical weapon” from his phone charger to burn the building down, saying he wanted to see people “suffer.” He also made references to blown up the building, describing it as the “calm before the storm,” the report said.

Steven Barbieri is the son of former Palm Beach County school board member Frank Barbieri, an attorney of counsel to a firm in Boca Raton.

In the police report, Officer Justin Gadson wrote that he arrested Steven Barbieri after the alleged “weapons” threat and charged him with the “manufacture, sale, delivery, display, use, or attempted or threatened use of a weapon of mass destruction,” a felony, as well as criminal mischief – a misdemeanor – for pulling the fire alarm.

Barbieri was transported to the Palm Beach County Jail, where he is currently lodged pending $30,000 bail set on the two charges.