Federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December. Attorney General Pam Bondi said she instructed prosecutors to pursue capital punishment for the “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination.”
Mr. Thompson was shot dead outside a New York hotel on December 4th.
Police arrested Mr. Mangione, 26, in Pennsylvania days later after a nationwide manhunt. Mangione has pleaded not guilty to state charges and has yet to enter a plea for separate federal charges.
He is currently in a New York prison awaiting trial. Bondi described Mr. Thompson’s murder as “an act of political violence” that “posed a grave risk of death to additional persons” nearby.
Investigators claim Mr. Mangione was motivated by anger towards US health insurance companies. Mr.
Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, criticized the decision, calling it “barbaric.” She accused the government of defending a “broken, immoral, and murderous healthcare industry.” Agnifilo argued that Mr. Mangione was caught between state and federal prosecutors. “While claiming to protect against murder, the federal government moves to commit the pre-meditated, state-sponsored murder of Luigi,” she said.
Mr.
Prosecutors seek death penalty
Mangione faces 11 state criminal counts in New York, including first-degree murder and murder as a crime of terrorism.
If convicted on all counts, he faces a mandatory life sentence without parole. Federal prosecutors have also charged Mr. Mangione with using a firearm to commit murder and interstate stalking resulting in death, making him eligible for the death penalty.
Prosecutors said the federal and state cases will proceed in parallel. Brian Thompson was the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, the largest private insurer in the US, since April 2021. New York prosecutors have shared evidence against Mr.
Mangione, including matching his fingerprints with those found at the crime scene. According to New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Mr. Mangione arrived in New York City on November 24th and stayed in a Manhattan hostel using a fake ID for 10 days before attacking Mr. Thompson.
The healthcare executive was shot in the back by a masked assailant on December 4th as he walked into a hotel where his company was holding an investors’ meeting. A nationwide search led police to Mr. Mangione five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Police said Mr. Mangione had a ghost gun, a fake ID, a passport, and a handwritten document indicating his “motivation and mindset.”
Mr. Thompson’s killing sparked a fraught debate about the US healthcare system, with many Americans expressing anger over perceived unfair treatment by insurance firms.
US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in December that the rhetoric on social media after the killing was “extraordinarily alarming” and showed rising domestic violent extremism.
