Luigi Mangione wants state murder case dropped, arguing double jeopardy
in UnitedHealthcare killing
[May 02, 2025]
By MICHAEL R. SISAK
NEW YORK (AP) — Luigi Mangione‘s lawyers urged a judge Thursday to throw
out his state murder charges in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO
Brian Thompson, arguing that the New York case and a parallel federal
death penalty prosecution amount to double jeopardy.
If that doesn’t happen, they want terrorism charges dismissed and
prosecutors barred from using evidence collected during Mangione’s
arrest last December, including a 9 mm handgun, ammunition and a
notebook in which authorities say he described his intent to “wack” an
insurance executive.
Mangione’s lawyers also want to exclude statements he made to police
officers who took him into custody at a McDonald’s restaurant in
Altoona, Pennsylvania, 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of New York
City, after a five-day search.
Among other things, prosecutors say the Ivy League graduate apologized
to officers “for the inconvenience of the day,” and expressed concern
for a McDonald’s employee who alerted them to his whereabouts, saying:
“A lot of people will be upset I was arrested.”
Thompson’s Dec. 4 killing outside a Manhattan hotel “has led to a legal
tug-of-war between state and federal prosecutors as they fight for who
controls the fate of 26-year-old Luigi Mangione,” his lawyers, Karen
Friedman Agnifilo, Marc Agnifilo and Jacob Kaplan wrote in a 57-page
court filing.
They called the dual state and federal cases, plus a third in
Pennsylvania involving gun possession and other charges, “unprecedented
prosecutorial one-upmanship." They said prosecutors ”are trying to get
two bites at the apple to convict Mr. Mangione" of murder.
“Yet, despite the gravest of consequences for Mr. Mangione, law
enforcement has methodically and purposefully trampled his
constitutional rights,” his lawyers wrote. They allege officers
questioned him without telling him he had a right to remain silent and
searched his property without a warrant.
The Manhattan district attorney's office said it would respond in court
papers.
The defense’s demands to end or limit Mangione’s state case could
preview his legal strategy for his federal murder case, where
prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty. The state charges carry a
maximum punishment of life in prison.
Mangione, who turns 27 on Tuesday, has pleaded not guilty in both cases.
He has been held in a Brooklyn federal jail since authorities whisked
him to New York by plane and helicopter after his arrest.
Mangione is due back in court for the state case on June 26, when Judge
Gregory Carro is expected to rule on the dismissal request. He next
federal court date is Dec. 5, a day after the one-year anniversary of
Thompson’s death. No trial date has been set in either case.
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Luigi Mangione , accused of fatally shooting the UnitedHealthcare
CEO Brian Thompson in New York City and leading authorities on a
five-day search is scheduled, appears in court for a hearing,
Friday, Feb. 21, 2025, in New York. (Steven Hirsch/New York Post via
AP, Pool, File)
Prosecutors had said they expected the state case go to trial first,
but Friedman Agnifilo said last week that she wants the federal case
to take precedence because it involves the death penalty.
Along with seeking to dismiss the state case, Mangione’s lawyers
alternatively asked Carro to throw out charges alleging he killed
“in furtherance of terrorism" and as an act of terrorism. They argue
there are “absolutely no facts to support this theory" and that
charging him under a post-9/11 terrorism statute flouts the intent
of lawmakers.
Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson from
behind as the executive arrived for UnitedHealthcare’s annual
investor conference. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were
scrawled on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase commonly used to
describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has said that the ambush
“was a killing that was intended to evoke terror.”
Mangione’s federal charges include murder through use of a firearm,
which carries the possibility of the death penalty, along with two
counts of stalking and a firearms offense.
Last month, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that she was
directing Manhattan federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty
for the killing, calling it “an act of political violence” and a
“premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”
The killing and ensuing search leading to Mangione’s arrest rattled
the business community while galvanizing health insurance critics
who rallied around Mangione as a stand-in for frustrations over
coverage denials and hefty bills.
In their filing Thursday, Mangione’s lawyers argued that the
conflicting theories of the state and federal cases — intending to
“intimidate or coerce a civilian population" vs. stalking a single
person — has created a “legal quagmire” that makes it “legally and
logistically impossible to defend against them simultaneously.”
"This situation is so constitutionally fraught that we are hard
pressed to find precedent for such an unprecedented situation,"
Mangione’s lawyers wrote.
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