Suspect Luigi Mangione is taken into the Blair County Courthouse on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024, in Hollidaysburg, Pa. (Benjamin B. Braun/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP)
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Under New York law, such a charge can be brought when an alleged crime is “intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policies of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion and affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder, assassination or kidnapping.”
Mangione’s New York lawyer has not commented on the case.
Thompson, 50, was shot dead as he walked to a Manhattan hotel where Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare — the United States’ biggest medical insurer — was holding an investor conference.
After days of intense police searches and publicity, Mangione was arrested on Dec. 9 after being spotted in a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. New York police officials have said Mangione was carrying the gun used to kill Thompson, a passport and various fake IDs, including one that the suspected shooter presented to check into a New York hostel.
The 26-year-old was charged with Pennsylvania gun and forgery offenses and locked up there without bail. His Pennsylvania lawyer has questioned the evidence for the forgery charge and the legal grounding for the gun charge. The attorney also has said Mangione would fight extradition to New York.
The indictment could help move along procedural steps toward extraditing the suspect.
Hours after his arrest, the Manhattan district attorney’s office filed paperwork charging him with murder and other offenses. The indictment builds on that paperwork.
Investigators’ working theory is that Mangione, an Ivy League computer science grad from a prominent Maryland family, was propelled by anger at the U.S. health care system. A law enforcement bulletin obtained by The Associated Press week said that when arrested, he was carrying a handwritten letter that called health insurance companies “parasitic” and complained about corporate greed.
Mangione repeatedly posted on social media about how spinal surgery last year had eased his chronic back pain, encouraging people with similar conditions to speak up for themselves if told they just had to live with it.
In a Reddit post in late April, he advised someone with a back problem to seek additional opinions from surgeons and, if necessary, say the pain made it impossible to work.
“We live in a capitalist society,” Mangione wrote. “I’ve found that the medical industry responds to these key words far more urgently than you describing unbearable pain and how it’s impacting your quality of life.”
He was never a UnitedHealthcare client, according to the insurer.
Mangione apparently cut himself off from his family and close friends in recent months. His family reported him missing to San Francisco authorities in November.
Thompson, who grew up on a farm in small-town Iowa, was trained as an accountant. A married father of two high-schoolers, he had worked at the giant UnitedHealth Group for 20 years and became CEO of its insurance arm in 2021.
His killing kindled a fiery outpouring of resentment toward U.S. health insurance companies, as Americans swapped stories online and elsewhere of being denied coverage, left in limbo as doctors and insurers disagreed, and stuck with sizeable bills.
The shooting also rattled C-suites, as “wanted” posters with other health care executives’ names and faces appeared on New York streets and an outpouring of online vitriol prompted police to warn that there could be an “elevated threat.”
What we know about Luigi Mangione, the suspect in UnitedHealthcare CEO’s killing
With the arrest of Luigi Mangione, police have apprehended and charged a suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, though many questions remain unanswered.
Late Monday night, Manhattan prosecutors filed murder and other charges against Luigi Mangione. Earlier in the evening, Mangione was arraigned on firearms and forgery charges in Pennsylvania.
The 26-year-old Mangione was arrested in Pennsylvania with a ghost gun that police believe was used in the killing, as well as a fake ID and a handwritten, three-page document indicating his motivation. New York Police Department Chief Detective Joseph Kenny said the document in Mangione’s possession indicated some “ill will toward corporate America.”
Mangione has left a digital trail about his life and personality, which may have surprised many of those who had spent days speculating about the possible motives — and origins — of the person accused of gunning down Brian Thompson.
The shooting sparked a national outpouring of populist fury about the U.S. health system and the role that for-profit companies, including Thompson’s, play in its dysfunctions. But Mangione, who appears to come from a wealthy and privileged background, would be less likely than many Americans to be at the economic mercy of that system.
He was, according to his social media accounts, an Ivy League-educated tech worker who was interested in philosophy, wellness and the masculinity-focused self-help advice of gurus including Andrew Huberman, a controversial podcaster.
It’s been widely reported that Mangione grew up in a successful Baltimore family, which owns two country clubs, and became the valedictorian of the Gilman School, a private all-boys elementary and secondary school.
He then attended the University of Pennsylvania, and graduated in 2020 with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science, according to his LinkedIn page. While at Penn, Mangione founded a game development club that grew to include over 50 members, as reported by the student newspaper the Daily Pennsylvanian.
Mangione most recently worked as a data engineer at TrueCar, according to his LinkedIn page. A spokesperson for the company said via email that Mangione “has not been an employee of our company since 2023.”
A Goodreads account in his name left a positive review for the writings of Theodore Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, whose targets included a president of United Airlines.
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