The maniac who barged into the Today show on Thursday was seen in the background during one of the show’s segments minutes before the incident.
According to TMZ, while Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin were reporting on a great white shark possibly headed to Cape Cod, a man who looked like Andrew Truelove was seen walking around and smoking outside a Rockefeller Center studio.
The video aired at 8:45 a.m., just 15 minutes before True Love managed to slip into the studio.
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Millicent Kastenbaum said at Friday’s arraignment that Truelove, 41, who has a rap sheet in New York that includes felony convictions, followed an employee who used his ID badge to enter an “employee-only area” from the lobby.
He then confronts Melvin in the stairwell and demands to know the whereabouts of Al Roker.
During the exchange, Truelove took several steps toward the host and hit him with a racial slur, according to the criminal complaint and sources.
Truelove was apprehended at the scene and arrested along with another man.
He is charged with third-degree robbery, a hate crime, and third-degree menacing, a hate crime.
“I’ve always wanted to call a black celebrity the N-word,” Truelove told Melvin, 47, who called security and the intruder was detained and arrested.
On Friday, Truelove was also indicted on hate crime charges, and the judge in the case set bail at $10,000.
He remained in custody at Rikers Island as of Friday, according to court records obtained by the newspaper.
Truelove could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted and is scheduled to appear in court again on July 22.
Page Six exclusively reported that the security guard who failed to stop True Love has been fired.
Both Melvin and Roker were also granted protection orders against this crazed stalker.
In response to the horrific incident, NBC released a statement saying the “Today” show is “cooperating fully with law enforcement in their investigation.”
On Friday, Melvin addressed the incident and assured viewers that he was “safe.”
