Luigi Mangione due in court amid double jeopardy fight in
UnitedHealthcare CEO’s killing
[September 16, 2025]
By MICHAEL R. SISAK
NEW YORK (AP) — Luigi Mangione is due in court Tuesday as his lawyers
push to have his state murder charges thrown out in the killing of
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. They argue that the New York case
and a parallel federal death penalty prosecution amount to double
jeopardy.
Also to be decided: a trial date and whether the state case or federal
case will go first.
It's Mangione’s first court appearance in the state case since February.
The 27-year-old Ivy League graduate has attracted a cult following as a
stand-in for frustrations with the health insurance industry. Dozens of
his supporters showed up to his last hearing, many wearing the Luigi
video game character’s green color as a symbol of solidarity. His April
arraignment in the federal case drew a similar outpouring.
If Judge Gregory Carro permits the state case to go forward, Mangione’s
lawyers have said they want him to dismiss terrorism charges and bar
prosecutors from using evidence collected during Mangione’s arrest last
December, including a 9 mm handgun and a notebook in which authorities
say he described his intent to “wack” an insurance executive.
Prosecutors want the judge to force Mangione’s lawyers to state whether
they’ll pursue an insanity defense or introduce psychiatric evidence of
any mental disease or defect he may have.
Carro could either rule on those requests on Tuesday, schedule
additional hearings or issue written decisions at a later date.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of murder, including
murder as an act of terrorism, in the Dec. 4, 2024, killing.
Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson from behind
as he arrived for an investor conference at the New York Hilton Midtown.
Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were scrawled on the ammunition,
mimicking a phrase commonly used to describe how insurers avoid paying
claims.
Mangione was arrested five days later after he was spotted eating
breakfast at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles
(about 370 kilometers) west of New York City and whisked to Manhattan by
plane and helicopter. Since then, he has been held at the same Brooklyn
federal jail where Sean “Diddy” Combs is locked up.
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The Manhattan district attorney's office contends that there are no
double jeopardy issues because neither of Mangione’s cases has gone
to trial and because the state and federal prosecutions involve
different legal theories.
Mangione’s lawyers say the dueling cases have created a “legal
quagmire” that makes it “legally and logistically impossible to
defend against them simultaneously.”
The state charges, which carry a maximum of life in prison, allege
that Mangione wanted to “intimidate or coerce a civilian
population,” that is, insurance employees and investors. The federal
charges allege that Mangione stalked Thompson and do not involve
terror allegations.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in April that she was
directing federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for “an act
of political violence” and a “premeditated, cold-blooded
assassination that shocked America.”
The Manhattan district attorney's office quoted extensively from
Mangione’s handwritten diary in a court filing seeking to uphold his
state murder charges. They highlighted his desire to kill an
insurance honcho and his praise for Ted Kaczynski, the late
terrorist known as the Unabomber.
In the writings, prosecutors said, Mangione mused about rebelling
against “the deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel” and said
killing an industry executive “conveys a greedy bastard that had it
coming." They also cited a confession they say he penned “To the
feds,” in which he wrote that “it had to be done.”
Mangione’s “intentions were obvious from his acts, but his writings
serve to make those intentions explicit,” prosecutors said in the
June filing. The writings, which they sometimes described as a
manifesto, “convey one clear message: that the murder of Brian
Thompson was intended to bring about revolutionary change to the
healthcare industry.”
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