The person accused of killing UnitedHealthcare’s CEO was whisked again to New York by aircraft and helicopter Thursday to face new federal costs of stalking and homicide, which might carry the dying penalty if he is convicted.
Luigi Mangione was held with out bail following a Manhattan federal court docket look that occurred shortly after he was returned to New York. He remained shackled on the ankles all through the 15-minute continuing, throughout which he instructed a Justice of the Peace he understands the allegations in opposition to him.
The listening to adopted morning court docket appearances in Pennsylvania, the place he was arrested final week 5 days after the taking pictures of Brian Thompson. Mangione now faces state and federal prosecutions in New York. Manhattan’s high federal prosecutor mentioned in a launch that the state costs have been anticipated to proceed to trial first.
After his Pennsylvania court docket hearings, Mangione was instantly turned over to no less than a dozen New York Police Division officers who have been within the courtroom and led him to a aircraft sure for Lengthy Island. He then was flown to a Manhattan heliport, the place he was walked slowly up a pier by a throng of officers with assault rifles.
The federal grievance filed Thursday costs him with two counts of stalking and one rely every of homicide by use of a firearm and a firearms offense. Homicide by firearm carries the potential for the dying penalty, although federal prosecutors will decide whether or not to pursue that path in coming months.
Luigi Nicholas Mangione leaves at Blair County Courthouse in Hollidaysburg, Pa., Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photograph/Gene J. Puskar, Pool)
In a New York state indictment filed earlier this week, Mangione was charged with homicide as an act of terrorism, which carries a potential sentence of life in jail with out parole. New York doesn’t have the dying penalty.
His legal professional mentioned twin state and federal instances places the protection in a extremely uncommon scenario. “Frankly I’ve by no means seen something like what is occurring right here,” mentioned Karen Friedman Agnifilo. She reserved the appropriate to petition for bail at a later level. Agnifilo declined to remark as she left the courthouse.
The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate is accused of ambushing and taking pictures Thompson on Dec. 4 outdoors a Manhattan lodge the place the top of america’ largest medical insurance coverage firm was strolling to an investor convention.
Authorities have mentioned that when Magione was arrested on Dec. 9 whereas consuming breakfast at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, he had the gun used to kill Thompson, a passport, faux IDs and about $10,000.
Based on the federal grievance, Magione additionally had a pocket book that included a number of handwritten pages expressing hostility towards the medical health insurance trade and rich executives particularly.
An August entry mentioned that “the goal is insurance coverage” as a result of “it checks each field,” in accordance with the submitting. An entry in October “describes an intent to ‘wack’ the CEO of one of many insurance coverage corporations at its investor convention,” the doc mentioned.
Investigators imagine Mangione was motivated by anger towards the US well being care system and company greed. However he was by no means a UnitedHealthcare consumer, in accordance with the insurer.
Luigi Mangione, middle, stands flanked by his attorneys Karen Agnifilo, left and Marc Agnifilo, proper, throughout his preliminary court docket look in Manhattan federal court docket, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams through AP)
Mangione initially fought makes an attempt to extradite him. Throughout two transient court docket appearances in Pennsylvania on Thursday, he waived a preliminary listening to on forgery and firearms costs earlier than agreeing to be despatched again to New York.
The killing ignited an outpouring of tales about resentment towards US medical health insurance corporations whereas additionally shaking company America after some social media customers referred to as the taking pictures payback.
Video confirmed a masked gunman taking pictures Thompson, 50, from behind after which firing a number of extra photographs. The suspect eluded police regardless of authorities broadly circulating pictures of his unmasked face till Mangione was captured in Altoona, about 277 miles (446 kilometers) west of New York.
Mangione, a pc science graduate from a outstanding Maryland household, repeatedly posted on social media about how spinal surgical procedure final 12 months had eased his persistent again ache, encouraging folks with comparable circumstances to talk up for themselves if instructed they simply needed to dwell with it.
In a Reddit publish in late April, he suggested somebody with a again drawback to hunt extra opinions from surgeons and, if mandatory, say the ache made it inconceivable to work.
“We dwell in a capitalist society,” Mangione wrote. “I’ve discovered that the medical trade responds to those key phrases way more urgently than you describing insufferable ache and the way it’s impacting your high quality of life.”
He apparently minimize himself off from his household and shut associates in latest months. His household reported him lacking in San Francisco in November. His family members have mentioned in a press release that they have been “shocked and devastated” by his arrest.
Thompson, who grew up on a farm in Iowa, was educated as an accountant. A married father of two high-schoolers, he had labored on the big UnitedHealth Group for 20 years and have become CEO of its insurance coverage arm in 2021.
By MARK SCOLFORO, MICHAEL R. SISAK and LARRY NEUMEISTER Related Press
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