Luigi Mangione indicted on first-degree murder, terrorism-related charges in NYC in killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO

Molly Crane-Newman and Rocco Parascandola, New York Daily News on Dec 17, 2024

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NEW YORK — A Manhattan grand jury on Wednesday indicted Luigi Mangione on charges of murder and crimes reserved for suspected terrorists in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Mangione, 26, stands accused of first-degree murder as a killing in furtherance of terrorism, second-degree murder as a crime of terrorism, second-degree murder and eight other charges linked to the high-profile attack on Dec. 4 outside an entrance to the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan .

The first-degree murder charge is typically charged against defendants accused of killing a member of law enforcement or a witness. Mangione was previously expected to be charged with second-degree murder.

At a press conference, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said that if found guilty of the most serious allegations against him, Mangione faces a mandatory sentence of life without parole with “no discretion for the judge at all.”

“One charges that the killing was done as an act of terrorism, and the second (pertains) to the fact that the killing was intentional,” the DA said of the top counts.

“In its most basic terms, this was a killing that intended to evoke terror.”

The DA and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch decried the public support Mangione has received, with Tisch saying authorities had tracked a “shocking and appalling celebration of cold-blooded murder.”

“Social media has erupted with praise for this cowardly attack. People ghoulishly plastered posters threatening other CEOs with an ‘X’ over Mr. Thompson’s picture, as though he was some sort of a sick trophy,” she said.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said that on Dec. 7, two days before Mangione’s arrest, his mother expressed to police who called her to vet a tip that she could imagine her son carrying out the killing.

“They had a conversation, where she didn’t indicate that it was her son in the photographs but she said it might be something that she could see him doing,” Kenny said.

Mangione’s lawyer, former Manhattan prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo, declined to comment.

Mangione is expected to waive his extradition to New York when he next appears in court in Pennsylvania on Thursday, a source told the Daily News earlier Tuesday. He had previously planned to contest it.

Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two, was gunned down from behind by a masked suspect as he arrived early for UnitedHealthcare’s annual investor conference shortly before 7 a.m. on Dec. 4, on W. 54th St. near Sixth Avenue, footage of the killing shows.

Mangione, an Ivy League graduate from Maryland who hails from a prominent family with significant real estate holdings, has been incarcerated at a Pennsylvania correctional facility since his arrest on Dec. 9 more than 200 miles from the scene at a McDonald’s in Altoona. A customer recognized him from widely circulated stills of surveillance footage, prompting a worker to call 911.

When cops approached him sitting toward the back of the fast-food restaurant, he allegedly lied about who he was and presented a fake ID. After he was pressed on his identity, he admitted to his real name and was placed under arrest. He faces charges in the Keystone State related to carrying a firearm without a license, forgery and giving law enforcement a fake ID, but Pennsylvania prosecutors have said they will not seek to try him on those charges before his case in New York is resolved.

Authorities allegedly recovered a 3D-printed ghost gun and silencer from Mangione’s backpack and ammunition matching shell casings at the scene. In court filings Tuesday, prosecutors said two discharged shell casings at the scene bore the words “deny” and “depose,” and a bullet featured the word “delay,” in an apparent accusation against the health insurance industry routinely denying medical care to maximize profits.

Police also allege Mangione was in possession of a “manifesto” laying out his reasons for the killing. He allegedly wrote that insurers had “simply gotten too powerful,” continuing to “abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has (allowed) them to get away with it.”

“Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming,” the missive read, according to police.

Mangione was not a client of UnitedHealthcare, according to police. He posted on Reddit and other forums about pain he endured that led him to undergo major surgery on his spine.

Mangione’s Pennsylvania-based attorney, Thomas Dickey, who could not immediately be reached for comment, has said his client is innocent and that he hasn’t personally seen anything to suggest otherwise.

Once he is extradited to New York, Mangione is expected to appear before a judge for his Supreme Court arraignment and enter a plea to the charges.

His attorney may request that he be released on bail while he waits for his case to play out; if a judge finds he poses a flight risk, he will likely wind up awaiting trial from Rikers Island.

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