Man who posed as federal agent during Amtrak derailment sentenced to probation

A police vest and a federal law enforcement title helped ensure that Michael Alvaro often found a place at the center of a crisis.

Lending a hand to state police in 2014, he discovered what he said was a brick of heroin in the trunk of a drunk driver's car. He offered his help three months later to solve a murder case. And when Amtrak Train 188 derailed in Port Richmond last year, killing eight, it was Alvaro who was left to guard the impact crater.

Yet the 38-year-old Frankford resident was sentenced to five months' probation Thursday because - despite his frequent offers to render aid - he was never a federal agent at all.

In imposing sentence on the impostor, U.S. District Judge John R. Padova said Alvaro's impersonation first of a DEA agent and later an investigator from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives at various crime scenes in the last two years introduced an unneeded element of risk in already dangerous situations.

Alvaro's lawyer blamed his client's actions on a long struggle with mental illness and "an enormous and obsessive desire to be helpful."

But when it came time for him to address the judge, Alvaro, a former Philadelphia School District police officer, said his deceptions were also motivated by his feelings of inferiority after years of being looked down on by other law enforcement officers because he was "only a school cop" - and one who lost his job after a back injury.

"I did everything I could to stay in the field to keep going after the bad guys," he said. "But I ended up turning into one by exaggerating my background just to make myself feel better."

Whatever his reasons, the extent to which Alvaro was able to insinuate himself into police investigations with no proof of his identity is astounding.

In November 2014, he interrupted a crash investigation on I-95, introducing himself as a member of a DEA task force, and suggested to the lone state trooper at the scene that they should search the car involved. Alvaro popped the trunk with a crowbar and found a "brick-shaped sludgy object" inside, which he identified as heroin. Investigators later determined it was paintballs.

Alvaro again adopted the DEA ruse when police pulled him over after he ran a red light in early 2015 and he offered his help with the investigation of a recent murder on Aramingo Avenue.

And all it took to inveigle himself into the middle of the Amtrak derailment scene - which drew a full press of first responders and investigators from all manner of local and federal agencies - was a call to police radio dispatch for the location and his introduction of "Sgt. Alvaro . . . DEA." A detective who believed Alvaro was an ATF agent later left him alone that night to guard the impact crater from one of the train cars.

When actual DEA agents caught on to his act and searched his house, they found it filled with police paraphernalia, including jackets and badges from various law enforcement agencies, and two unregistered guns.

Public defender Mark Wilson said Thursday that his client never set out to harm anyone with his impersonations. Since his arrest last year, Alvaro has pleaded guilty to his crimes, and he is back on his medication for bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorders, his lawyer said.

Padova appeared cautiously sympathetic. In addition to the probation term, he ordered Alvaro to pay a $500 fine and barred him from owning any police memorabilia or guns during the length of his sentence.

And as Thursday's hearing neared its conclusion, the judge offered Alvaro one more piece of advice: The next time he felt an overwhelming urge to help people, he should first consider a soup kitchen.

jroebuck@phillynews.com

215-854-2608

@jeremyrroebuck