Man charged with posing as Secret Service agent at Department of Health and Human Services

Frederick J. Nickerson, 46, apparently left the building after being confronted by employees. He was arrested Tuesday on charges of impersonating a Secret Service agent and was being held pending a detention hearing next week in the District's federal court.

Officials with the Federal Protective Service wrote in court papers that Nickerson flashed what appeared to be a Secret Service badge to security guards and said he was employed by the agency and needed to see Sebelius. Nickerson also motioned to the side of his body as if to suggest he was carrying a gun on his waistband, court papers say. He is not an employee of HHS or Secret Service.

A witness later saw Nickerson sitting in the lobby outside Sebelius's suite making calls on his cellphone. The witness recognized his face from photographs that had been circulated in the building as someone banned from the facility and then recognized his voice from phone calls made by him late last year to HHS in which he made "irrational demands to see the secretary and other people in charge," the court papers say.