U.S. Lawyer Normal Pam Bondi stated Tuesday she has directed federal prosecutors to hunt the demise penalty in opposition to Luigi Mangione, the person accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outdoors a Manhattan lodge on Dec. 4.
Mangione, 26, faces separate federal and state homicide costs for the killing. The federal costs embody a cost of homicide by means of use of a firearm, which carries the potential for the demise penalty.
“Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson — an innocent man and father of two young children — was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America,” Bondi stated in an announcement. “After careful consideration, I have directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case as we carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again.”
A message looking for touch upon Bondi’s announcement was left for a spokesperson for Mangione’s attorneys.
Final week, a choose cleared the best way for Mangione to get a laptop computer behind bars — if his jailers agree — so he can look at paperwork and different materials within the UnitedHealthcare CEO homicide case.
New York state Decide Gregory Carro wrote that he had “no objection” to Mangione’s request for the machine, which might be configured to permit him solely to evaluate case supplies. However Carro famous that it is in the end as much as federal authorities who oversee the lockup the place Mangione is awaiting trial.
Mangione, a prep faculty and Ivy League graduate whose household had reported him lacking, has pleaded not responsible to New York costs that embody homicide as an act of terrorism. Additionally going through a federal homicide cost, he’s being held on the Metropolitan Detention Middle, a federal jail in Brooklyn.
He hasn’t entered a plea within the federal case.
Thompson was ambushed on Dec. 4 whereas strolling to a Manhattan lodge the place the corporate was holding an investor convention.
Luigi Mangione spoke inside a New York court docket room for the primary time Monday, pleading not responsible to costs within the demise of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione swapped an orange jumpsuit for a sweater and slacks to face a choose on costs that embody homicide and terrorism, on prime of the federal costs in opposition to him. NBC New York’s Sarah Wallace experiences.
Mangione’s attorneys requested Monday that he get a laptop computer to view an unlimited quantity of paperwork, video and different gadgets that prosecutors have gathered and turned over to the protection to date.
Mangione’s attorneys stated the fabric is so voluminous that he cannot moderately view it on the lockup’s shared computer systems for inmates, nor go over all of it throughout visiting hours along with his attorneys, so he wants a devoted laptop computer to scrutinize the fabric and assist put together his protection.
The Manhattan district lawyer’s workplace, which is prosecuting the uncommon murder-as-an-act-of-terrorism case, objected to the laptop computer request. Prosecutors argued, amongst different issues, that Mangione’s attorneys may present him the important thing case materials.
In the course of the back-and-forth over the laptop computer, prosecutors disclosed that somebody slipped a handwritten, heart-shaped notice of encouragement into socks that have been supposed for Mangione to put on to court docket final month. A court docket officer intercepted the message earlier than the footgear acquired to Mangione.
His attorneys stated they have been unaware of the notice after they introduced him the garments.
It’s not clear who wrote the notice or hid it within the socks.
