Dec. 19 (UPI) — Luigi Mangione, accused of shooting and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is now facing charges that could bring the death penalty after being extradited from Pennsylvania back to New York City Thursday.
Mangione was charged with the stalking and killing of Thompson, and the use of a silencer in a crime of violence, the U.S Justice Department announced Thursday. The new federal charges make him eligible for the death penalty if he is found guilty.
Mangione’s appointed lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, expected her client to be arraigned on state murder and terrorism charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office — including by prosecutors and his lawyers — after waiving his extradition to New York at a court hearing in Pennsylvania.
Instead, shortly after arriving in New York, Mangione, 26, was charged with murder through the use of a firearm, a federal crime, which carries a maximum potential sentence of death or life in prison, and stalking and firearm offenses.
“It is a highly unusual situation that we find ourselves in,” Friedman Agnifilo said at a Manhattan federal court hearing, adding she had been prepared to defend him against state charges announced by Bragg’s office on Tuesday.
A media frenzy ensued after Mangione arrived via helicopter in Lower Manhattan and was escorted, shackled and in an orange jumpsuit, across the heliport by police.
“I don’t think they even knew this was going to happen,” Friedman Agnifilo added. “There are a lot of factors that are very confusing and highly unusual. Frankly, I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Manhattan Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker detained Mangione after his legal team reserved making a bail application and set a preliminary hearing for Jan. 18. The court date will become moot if the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office secures an indictment from a grand jury in the interim.
Lawyers are also poring over a notebook found in Mangione’s possession that related to events surrounding the December 4th shooting, they said.
An entry dated August 15th says “the details are finally coming together,” according to court documents. Mangione allegedly wrote, “I’m glad – in a way – that I’ve procrastinated,” Mangione allegedly wrote in the entry.
The note said he had more time to learn about the company he was targeting, the name of which was redacted, court documents show.
“This investor conference is a true windfall … and – most importantly – the message becomes self evident,” another entry says, according to the complaint, an apparent reference to Dec. 4 UHC shareholder meeting where Thompson was gunned down.
The Justice Department said Mangione allegedly committed the crime to start “debates” over the state of the health care industry in the United States.
“Brian Thompson was gunned down in cold blood as he walked down a street in midtown Manhattan,” Acting U.S. Attorney Edward Y. Kim said in the Justice Department release. “As alleged, Luigi Mangione traveled to New York to stalk and shoot Thompson in broad daylight in front of a Manhattan hotel, all in a grossly misguided attempt to broadcast Mangione’s views across the country. But this wasn’t a debate, it was murder, and Mangione now faces federal charges.”
Mangione waived his right to an extradition hearing.
“We relinquished him to the custody of the New York City Police Department, and they’ll be taking him back to New York City in a safe and secure manner,” Blair County District Attorney Peter Weeks told reporters Thursday morning.
Mangione has been indicted on 11 charges in New York, including first-degree murder as an act of terrorism. He has not yet pleaded in relation to those charges.
Mangione is also accused of using a 3D-printed ghost gun to kill UnitedHealthcare Thompson on Dec. 4. Authorities say Mangione waited outside Thompson’s midtown Manhattan hotel before shooting him.
He then fled but was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa.
Public reaction to the shooting has been largely supportive of Mangione, as people have expressed their frustration and anger on social media over their experiences with the healthcare industry generally, and with insurance companies specifically.
Several crowdfunding sites have spontaneously raised in excess of $115,000 in legal defense funds for Mangione, with mostly anonymous donations large and small coming in from all over the world.
UnitedHealthcare ranks as the 9th largest corporation by revenue in the world, and reported profits of $22 billion in 2022, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. That was up from about $14 billion in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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