Luigi Mangione is slated to appear in court Friday for the first time since pleading not guilty to murder and terror charges stemming from the high-profile killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro is set to receive updates on discovery matters and other basic aspects of the case at the routine pretrial proceeding at 2:15 a.m.
Mangione, currently behind bars at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, will be temporarily transferred from federal to city custody to attend the hearing.
The 26-year-old Maryland man has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in furtherance of terrorism, second-degree murder as a crime of terrorism, and nine related offenses. He could face a maximum term of life without parole if convicted in the case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.
A masked gunman, who authorities allege was Mangione, fatally shot Thompson in the back and leg as the CEO arrived for an investor conference at the Hilton Hotel in Midtown shortly before 7 a.m. on Dec. 4. Two discharged shell casings at the scene bore the words “deny” and “depose,” and a bullet featured the word “delay,” in an apparent reference to the health insurance industry routinely denying claims for medical care coverage to maximize profits, according to Bragg’s office.
Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa., five days after the killing that sparked a nationwide manhunt. He was allegedly in possession of a 3D-printed ghost gun, silencer, and ammunition matching what was recovered at the scene, according to state and federal authorities, and writings critical of Thompson’s line of work. He’s charged with illegally carrying a firearm and various related offenses in Pennsylvania.
Thompson was a 50-year-old father of two high school students from Minnesota. A steady stream of details that emerged about Mangione’s personal experiences with the health insurance industry, including issues with his spine, led to an outpouring of support and Mangione being seen as a folk hero to some amid widespread frustration with the U.S.’s expensive health care system.
Protesters at his last court appearance bore signs reading, “Free Luigi.” An online crowdfunding effort has raised more than $300,000 toward his legal defense.
He was returned to New York in a media spectacle that saw him surrounded by dozens of armed law enforcement agents and Mayor Adams on the heliport by Wall Street, an arrangement his attorney, Karen Friedman-Agnifilo, described as “the biggest staged perp walk I’ve ever seen in my career.” Last month, Mangione added Avraham Moskowitz to his legal team, who has extensive experience handling death penalty-eligible cases.
On the federal level, Mangione has been charged in a four-count complaint with murder with the use of a firearm, discharging a firearm with the use of a silencer, and two stalking offenses, with the top charge carrying a maximum sentence of death. He has not yet entered a plea in that case, in which prosecutors at the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office are yet to secure an indictment from a grand jury, and it’s as-yet unclear whether they plan to pursue the most severe form of punishment, which would require sign off from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The state and federal cases are expected to play out parallel to each other. Former acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Edward Kim previously said the feds expected the state case, which was filed first, to proceed to trial first. President Trump replaced Kim on his first day in office with Danielle Sassoon, who quit last week rather than obey an order from Trump’s DOJ leaders to abandon the public corruption case against Mayor Adams.
Trump has nominated his former chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Jay Clayton, to be the Manhattan U.S. attorney, who, if confirmed by the U.S. Senate, will ultimately call the shots on the federal case against Mangione.
Mangione, an Ivy League computer science graduate and the grandson of a wealthy Maryland real estate developer, is waiting out his trials at Brooklyn’s scandal-plagued federal jail, which is currently housing other high-profile inmates like Sean “Diddy” Combs and the multimillionaire Alexander brothers, who respectively face sex trafficking charges.
In December, Friedman Agnifilo, a former Manhattan prosecutor, raised concerns about the dueling cases and the prospect of double jeopardy. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2019 held that someone could be prosecuted for the same crimes in the state and federal courts, finding local governments and the federal government were “separate sovereigns.”
This story will be updated.
Leave a comment