Luigi Mangione extradited to NYC
Luigi Mangione, accused of assassinating United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, was extradited to New York and appeared in Manhattan federal court docket on Friday. He’s being held with out bail after a New York federal court docket look on expenses together with a death-eligible homicide depend. FOX 5’s Linda Schmidt and Michelle Ross have the story.
NEW YORK CITY – Luigi Mangione, the person accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, appeared in Manhattan federal court docket on new expenses that would doubtlessly carry the dying penalty.
JUMP TO: MURDER TIMELINE l CHARGES IN INDICTMENT
Mangione, 26, was extradited from Pennsylvania earlier within the day and is now being held with out bail on the Metropolitan Detention Middle in Brooklyn.
The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate had been anticipated to be arraigned Thursday on a state homicide indictment in a killing that without delay rattled the enterprise group and galvanized some medical insurance critics, however the federal expenses preempted that look. The instances will now proceed on parallel tracks, prosecutors mentioned, with the state expenses anticipated to go to trial first.
Throughout his transient 15-minute court docket look, Mangione responded “sure” when requested if he understood the federal expenses in opposition to him, which embrace homicide, stalking, and weapons offenses.
Mangione, shackled on the ankles and carrying costume garments, mentioned little through the 15-minute continuing as he sat between his legal professionals in a packed federal courtroom.
Luigi Mangione arrives in NYC
Alleged CEO killer Luigi Mangione has arrived in New York Metropolis after waiving extradition at a court docket look in Pennsylvania on Thursday.
“They’re charging him with a sort of homicide that features stalking and topics him, doubtlessly, to the dying penalty,” mentioned former federal prosecutor Andrew Cherkasky. “He wa additionally charged with first and second-degree homicide within the state of New York, these carry most penalties within the homicide within the first diploma of life with out the potential of parole, however there isn’t any dying penalty within the state of New York.”
“The radicalization that’s going down throughout our nation, we can’t ignore,” NYC Mayor Eric Adams advised the media.
The federal criticism expenses him with two counts of stalking and one depend every of homicide by means of use of a firearm and a firearms offense.
Mangione had been held in Pennsylvania since his Dec. 9 arrest whereas consuming breakfast at a McDonald’s in Altoona, about 233 miles (37 kilometers) west of Manhattan.
At a listening to there Thursday morning, Mangione agreed to be returned to New York and was instantly turned over to a minimum of a dozen New York Police Division officers who took him to an airport and a aircraft certain 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 — a contingent that included New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, mentioned it’s a “extremely uncommon state of affairs” for a defendant to face simultaneous state and federal instances.
“Frankly I’ve by no means seen something like what is going on right here,” mentioned Friedman Agnifilo, a former high deputy within the Manhattan district lawyer’s workplace.
She reserved the best to hunt bail at a later level and declined to remark as she left the courthouse.
In Pennsylvania, Blair County District Lawyer Pete Weeks had mentioned he needed to show Mangione over to New York authorities as quickly as potential. Weeks mentioned he was keen to place the Pennsylvania expenses on maintain.
“He’s now of their custody. He’ll go forth with New York to await trial or prosecution for his murder and associated expenses in New York,” Weeks mentioned.
Mangione, of Towson, Maryland, is accused of ambushing the 50-year-old Thompson as the manager arrived to a Manhattan resort for an investor convention.
Surveillance video confirmed a masked gunman taking pictures Thompson from behind. Police say the phrases “delay,” “deny” and “depose” have been scrawled on the ammunition investigators discovered on the scene, echoing a phrase generally used to explain insurer ways to keep away from paying claims.
The gunman then pedaled a bicycle by means of Central Park, took a taxicab to a bus station after which rode the subway to a prepare station earlier than fleeing to Pennsylvania, authorities mentioned.
There, a McDonald’s buyer observed that Mangione appeared just like the particular person in surveillance photographs police have been circulating of the gunman, prosecutors mentioned.
When he was arrested, they are saying, Mangione had the gun used to kill Thompson, a passport, faux IDs and about $10,000.
In response to the federal criticism, Mangione additionally had a spiral pocket book that included a number of handwritten pages expressing hostility towards the medical insurance trade and rich executives. UnitedHealthcare is the biggest well being insurer within the U.S., although the insurer mentioned Mangione was by no means a consumer.
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 firms at its investor convention,” the doc mentioned.
Mangione initially fought makes an attempt to return him to New York. Along with waiving extradition Thursday, he waived a preliminary listening to on forgery and firearms expenses in Pennsylvania.
The killing unleashed an outpouring of tales about resentment towards U.S. medical insurance firms whereas additionally shaking company America after some social media customers known as the taking pictures payback.
Mangione, a pc science graduate from a outstanding Maryland household, repeatedly posted on social media about how spinal surgical procedure final yr had eased his continual again ache, encouraging folks with related situations to talk up for themselves if advised they only needed to stay with it.
In a Reddit put up in late April, he suggested somebody with a again downside to hunt extra opinions from surgeons and, if vital, say the ache made it unimaginable to work.
“We stay 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 household and shut buddies in latest months. His household reported him lacking in San Francisco in November.
Thompson, who grew up on a farm in Iowa, was skilled as an accountant. A married father of two high-schoolers, he had labored at UnitedHealth Group for 20 years and have become CEO of its insurance coverage arm in 2021.
