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Luigi Mangione appeared before a New York federal court on Thursday where he is charged with murdering UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson in a case that has gripped global public attention.
The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate arrived in federal court in lower Manhattan early in the afternoon, shortly after prosecutors unveiled four charges against him, including murder by firearm and stalking.
The federal charges came in addition to an indictment obtained by the Manhattan district attorney in state court earlier this week in connection with the murder of Thompson, 50, who led the country’s largest health insurer.
In a brief, 15-minute hearing, Mangione confirmed he understood the charges against him, and his lawyers indicated they would not seek bail.
The case has garnered a mixture of outrage and sympathy as authorities look to piece together the reason for the killing of Thompson at dawn on a busy street in Midtown Manhattan, as he headed to an investor conference.
There has been a morbid outpouring of admiration from some quarters for Mangione, whose arrest followed a five-day manhunt, among Americans aggrieved with the state of the country’s costly healthcare system.
Underlining the outsized attention being given to the case, New York mayor Eric Adams on Thursday joined law enforcement officers to escort Mangione after he arrived in the city following his extradition from Pennsylvania, where he was arrested last week.
“This act of terrorism and the violence that stems from it is something that will not be tolerated in the city,” said Adams, a former New York Police Department officer. “We wanted to personally be here to show the symbolism of leading from the front.”
The federal complaint unsealed on Thursday charged Mangione with one count of murder through use of a firearm, one count of possession of a firearm and two counts of stalking. Mangione’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the charges.
Edward Kim, the acting US attorney for the southern district of New York, said Mangione had allegedly travelled to New York “to stalk and shoot Thompson in broad daylight in front of a Manhattan hotel, all in a grossly misguided attempt to broadcast Mangione’s views across the country”.
“But this wasn’t a debate, it was murder, and Mangione now faces federal charges,” Kim added.
The New York state charges unveiled earlier this week include first-degree murder “in furtherance of an act of terrorism”, and two counts of second- degree murder. Manhattan state prosecutors have described Thompson’s killing as a “brazen, targeted and premeditated” crime and urged the public not to lionise Mangione.
“There is no heroism in what Mangione did,” New York police commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a press conference earlier this week.
The federal complaint cites much of the same evidence allegedly tying Mangione to the crime that state authorities had previously presented. When he was arrested in Pennsylvania, authorities said they found the same fake New Jersey ID card used by the suspected shooter to check in to a New York hostel ahead of the murder; a gun and silencer consistent with the one believed to have been used against Thompson; and clothing matching the items worn by the shooter as captured on video.
The federal complaint also said that when Mangione was arrested he was in possession of a notebook outlining his intention to “wack” the chief executive of one of the insurance companies present at a conference in New York this month.
The notebook also stated that “the target is insurance” because “it checks every box”, and described the conference as “a true windfall”, according to the complaint.
New York state has outlawed the death penalty, but it is still legal on the federal level — and the nature of the charges against Mangione could allow prosecutors to pursue that punishment for Mangione if he is convicted.
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