NEW YORK, NY — The man arrested after an alleged hate crime near NBC’s Today studio in Manhattan has a criminal history stretching back more than 20 years, according to court records reviewed after the arrest.
Police say Andrew Truelove, 41, was taken into custody last week after he allegedly got into a restricted area near Studio 1A at Rockefeller Center and confronted co-host Craig Melvin. NBC said the incident happened without any physical fight and that no one was hurt.
Footage showed a man matching the suspect before the arrest
Video from the broadcast reportedly showed a man who appeared to match Truelove moving around outside the building earlier that morning. The footage showed him in the background around 8:03 a.m., then later taking off a backpack near a bush outside the studio, before appearing again as the morning went on.
By 8:57 a.m., police say he was arrested after allegedly using a racial slur toward Melvin in a private area that was not open to the public. Investigators said the man had been looking for Al Roker and encountered Melvin instead.
His record includes an attempted kidnapping conviction in Virginia
Court records show Truelove was convicted in 2007 in Norfolk, Virginia, in a case involving an attempted abduction of an 8-year-old child from a school. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with six years suspended, and then placed on 10 years of probation…