Luigi Mangione could face death penalty after new federal charges

New York: The man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare’s CEO was whisked back to New York by plane and helicopter to face new federal charges of stalking and murder, which could bring the death penalty if he’s convicted.

Luigi Mangione was held without bail following a Manhattan federal court appearance on Friday (AEDT) that occurred shortly after he was returned to New York. He remained shackled at the ankles throughout the 15-minute proceeding, during which he told a magistrate he understood the allegations against him.

Luigi Mangione was transferred to New York where he was charged with federal crimes.Credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images

The hearing followed morning court appearances in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested last week, five days after Brian Thompson was shot outside a New York hotel. Mangione now faces state and federal prosecutions in New York. Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor said in a release that the state charges were expected to proceed to trial first.

After his Pennsylvania court hearings, Mangione was immediately turned over to at least a dozen New York Police Department officers who were in the courtroom and led him to a plane bound for Long Island. He then was flown to a Manhattan heliport, where he was walked slowly up a pier by a throng of officers with assault rifles.

The federal complaint filed on Thursday charges him with two counts of stalking and one count each of murder through use of a firearm and a firearms offence. Murder by firearm carries the possibility of the death penalty, though federal prosecutors will determine whether to pursue that path in coming months.

Earlier this week, a grand jury in New York indicted Mangione on 11 counts of breaking state law, including first-degree murder and murder as an act of terrorism, which carries a possible sentence of life in prison without parole. New York state does not have the death penalty.

His attorney said dual state and federal cases puts the defence in a highly unusual situation. “Frankly, I’ve never seen anything like what is happening here,” said Karen Friedman Agnifilo. She reserved the right to petition for bail at a later point. Agnifilo declined to comment as she left the courthouse.

The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate is accused of ambushing and shooting Thompson on December 4 outside a Manhattan hotel where the head of the United States’ largest medical insurance company was walking to an investor conference.

Authorities have said that when Mangione was arrested on December 9 while eating breakfast at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, he had the gun used to kill Thompson, a passport, fake IDs and about $US10,000.

According to the federal complaint, Mangione also had a notebook that included several handwritten pages expressing hostility towards the health insurance industry and wealthy executives in particular.

An August entry said that “the target is insurance” because “it checks every box”, according to the filing. An entry in October “describes an intent to ‘wack’ the CEO of one of the insurance companies at its investor conference,” the document said.

“This investor conference is a true windfall,” one entry found in the notebook said, according to the complaint. “Most importantly – the message becomes self-evident.”

Police also found a letter in the suspect’s possession addressed “To the Feds” that stated: “I wasn’t working with anyone”, according to the complaint.

“This was fairly trivial: Some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience,” the letter said, using an abbreviation for computer-aided design.

Investigators believe Mangione was motivated by anger toward the US healthcare system and corporate greed. But he was never a UnitedHealthcare client, according to the insurer.

Mangione initially fought attempts to extradite him. During two brief court appearances in Pennsylvania on Thursday, he waived a preliminary hearing on forgery and firearms charges before agreeing to be sent back to New York.

The killing ignited an outpouring of stories about resentment toward US health insurance companies while also shaking corporate America after some social media users called the shooting payback.

Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealth’s insurance unit, was fatally shot outside a Manhattan hotel.Credit: AP

Video showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson, 50, from behind and then firing several more shots. The suspect eluded police despite authorities widely circulating photos of his unmasked face until Mangione was captured in Altoona, about 446 kilometres west of New York.

Mangione, a computer science graduate from a prominent Maryland family, repeatedly posted on social media about how spinal surgery last year had eased his chronic back pain, encouraging people with similar conditions to speak up for themselves if told they just had to live with it.

Thompson, who grew up on a farm in Iowa, was trained as an accountant. A married father of two high-schoolers, he had worked at the giant UnitedHealth Group for 20 years and became CEO of its insurance arm in 2021.

AP, Reuters

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