FILE PHOTO: Luigi Mangione, the suspect within the killing of UnitedHealth Group chief govt Brian Thompson, seems in Manhattan Supreme Court docket on New York state homicide and terrorism costs in New York Metropolis, U.S., February 21, 2025.
Curtis Means | By way of Reuters
Legal professional Common Pam Bondi on Tuesday stated she had ordered federal prosecutors to hunt the loss of life penalty within the case in opposition to Luigi Mangione for the December slaying of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York Metropolis.
“Luigi Mangione’s homicide of Brian Thompson — an harmless man and father of two younger youngsters — was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America,” Bondi stated in a assertion issued by the Division of Justice.
“After cautious consideration, I’ve directed federal prosecutors to hunt the loss of life penalty on this case as we supply out President Trump’s agenda to cease violent crime and Make America Secure Once more,” the lawyer common stated.
Karen Agnifilo, Mangione’s lawyer, condemned Bondi’s choice.
“By searching for to homicide Luigi Mangione, the Justice Division has moved from the dysfunctional to the barbaric,” Agnifilo stated in an announcement.
“Their choice to execute Luigi is political and goes in opposition to the advice of the native federal prosecutors, the legislation, and historic precedent,” the lawyer stated.
“Whereas claiming to guard in opposition to homicide, the federal authorities strikes to commit the pre-meditated, state-sponsored homicide of Luigi,” Agnifilo stated. “By doing this, they’re defending the damaged, immoral, and murderous healthcare trade that continues to terrorize the American folks.”
Bondi’s choice got here greater than two months after President Donald Trump, on his first day in workplace, signed an govt order calling for the restoration of use of the federal loss of life penalty. That order directed the lawyer common to “pursue the loss of life penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use.”
The DOJ beneath the Biden administration had imposed a moratorium on federal executions since mid-2021.
In February, U.S. District Decide Katherine Parker appointed an lawyer who’s a death-penalty skilled to Mangione’s authorized staff on the request of the Federal Defenders of New York, an impartial group that represents indigent defendants.
Mangione, 26, is being prosecuted in U.S. District Court docket in Manhattan with federal crimes, together with homicide, stalking, and firearms costs, associated to Thompson’s killing outdoors the Hilton Lodge in midtown Manhattan on Dec. 4.
Thompson, whose firm is the biggest payer of medical health insurance advantages in america, was headed into the resort for an investor assembly of its father or mother, UnitedHealth Group.
Mangione was apprehended 5 days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, the place police discovered him in possession of a pistol, a silencer, ammunition, pretend IDs and a U.S. passport.
Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare.
Courtesy: UnitedHealth Group
Mangione, who’s being held with out bail, has not but entered a plea in federal instances.
He has pleaded not responsible to homicide and different costs in Manhattan Supreme Court docket, which is a trial-level New York state courtroom. He faces a most doable sentence of life with out parole in that case if convicted. New York state doesn’t have the loss of life penalty.
The DOJ, in its assertion Tuesday, stated that Thompson’s “homicide was an act of political violence.”
“Mangione’s actions concerned substantial planning and premeditation and since the homicide occurred in public with bystanders close by, might have posed grave threat of loss of life to further individuals,” the assertion stated.
The division beforehand stated that the College of Pennsylvania graduate deliberate to kill Thompson to spark public dialogue in regards to the well being care trade.
Agnifilo, in her personal assertion, stated, “We’re ready to combat these federal costs, introduced by a lawless Justice Division, in addition to the New York State costs, and the Pennsylvania costs, and the rest they wish to pile on Luigi.”
“This can be a corrupt net of presidency dysfunction and one-upmanship. Luigi is caught in a high-stakes sport of tug-of-war between state and federal prosecutors, besides the trophy is a younger man’s life,” Agnifilo stated.
13 of the 16 folks executed by the federal authorities because the federal loss of life penalty was reinstated in 1988 had been executed over the ultimate seven months of Trump’s first time period in workplace, in keeping with the Demise Penalty Info Middle.
The opposite three executions had been carried out in 2001 and 2003, throughout President George W. Bush’s first time period.
Then-Legal professional Common Merrick Garland in July 2021 imposed a moratorium on federal executions pending a evaluate of DOJ insurance policies and procedures, together with “the danger of ache and struggling related to using pentobarbital,” a drug utilized in deadly injection executions.
Former President Joe Biden on Dec. 23 commuted the loss of life sentences of all however three of the 40 folks in federal loss of life row.
