The man accused of killing the CEO of UnitedHealthcare has been charged with murder as an act of terrorism, prosecutors said Tuesday as they worked to bring him to trial in New York from a Pennsylvania prison.
Luigi Mangione already charged with murder in the killing of Brian Thomson on December 4, but the terrorism charge is new.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Thompson's death on a downtown Manhattan street was a killing “intended to incite terror.” And we've seen that response.”
“This was a terrifying, well-planned, targeted murder intended to cause shock and attention and fear,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday.
“It happened in one of the busiest parts of our city, threatening the safety of local residents and tourists, commuters and business people just starting their day.”
Mangione's New York attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, declined to comment.
Thomson, 50, was burn dead while walking to a hotel where Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare – the largest medical insurer in the United States – was holding an investor conference.
The killing sparked a painful backlash toward U.S. health insurance companies, as Americans exchanged stories online and elsewhere about being denied coverage, left in limbo while doctors and insurers agreed, and involved in large bills.
Law after 9/11
A New York law passed after the September 11, 2001 attacks allows prosecutors to charge crimes as acts of terrorism when they are “intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population.” , to influence the policies of a governmental unit through intimidation or coercion and to influence the conduct of a governmental unit through assassination, assassination or kidnapping.”
Prosecutors have used the statute in a variety of contexts.
The first use was against a Bronx gang member accused in a shooting that killed a 10-year-old girl and paralyzed a man outside a baptism party in 2002. Officials said alleging that the shooting was part of a gang intimidation campaign in an area. .
The state's highest court later said the behavior did not amount to terrorism, threw out the conviction and ordered a new trial. The accused, who denied involvement in the shooting, was brought back, convicted of murder and attempted murder, and sentenced to 50 years in prison.
Arrested at McDonald's
In the Thompson case, after days of intense police investigation and publicity, Mangione was spotted at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pa., and arrested. New York police officials have said Mangione was carrying the gun used in Thompson's killing, a passport and various fake IDs, including one that identified the shooter as suspected of checking into a hostel in New York.
The suspect who killed the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Luigi Mangione has been getting some amazing online praise lately. David Gilbert, a reporter at Wired, talks about what he has seen online and why some may be glorifying Mangione.
The 26-year-old was charged with firearms and felonies in Pennsylvania and was locked up there without bail. His attorney in Pennsylvania has questioned the evidence for the fury charge and the legal basis for the gun charge. The lawyer has also said that Mangione would fight extradition to New York.
Mangione has two court hearings scheduled for Thursday in Pennsylvania, including an extradition hearing, Bragg noted.
Hours after his arrest, the Manhattan district attorney's office filed documents charging him with murder and other crimes. The conviction builds on that paperwork.
Investigators' working theory is that Mangione, an Ivy League computer science graduate from a prominent Maryland family, was driven by anger at the US health care system. A law enforcement memo obtained by The Associated Press last week said that when he was arrested, he was carrying a handwritten letter that called health insurance companies “parasitic” and complained about about corporate greed.
Mangione posted again on social media about how back surgery last year had eased his chronic back pain, encouraging people with similar conditions to speak up for themselves if told they needed to. they stay with him.
In a Reddit post at the end of April, he advised someone with a back problem to seek additional opinions from surgeons and, if necessary, to say that the pain made it impossible to work.
“We live in a capitalist society,” Mangione wrote. “I've found that the medical industry responds to those keywords far more urgently than you describe excruciating pain and how it affects 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 a small Iowa town, was trained as an accountant. A married father of two high school students, he had worked at the giant UnitedHealth Group for 20 years and became CEO of its insurance arm in 2021.
