Tuesday, Dec. 9, marked one year after Luigi Mangione’s 2024 arrest at an Altoona, Pennsylvania, McDonald’s, and the defendant spent the day in New York State Supreme Court for his pre-trial suppression hearings.
Mangione was initially arrested on charges of providing a fake New Jersey ID to police and having a 3D-printed gun and silencer without a permit. A McDonald’s manager called 911 after a customer said they suspected Mangione of looking like the man who shot United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione’s defense team is claiming that the Altoona police violated his constitutional rights by illegally searching his backpack during his arrest and not reading him his Miranda Rights early enough in the interrogation process. His team hopes to suppress evidence seized as well as comments Mangione made prior to his arrest, preventing it from being admitted into trial. On Tuesday, the fifth day of the suppression hearings, the court watched body-worn camera footage from Altoona police from the day of Mangione’s arrest.
Officer Christy Wasser testified this week about her search of Mangione’s backpack last December. (The court also heard from a Pennsylvania district attorney.) Wasser said she was afraid there was a bomb in Mangione’s backpack, which is part of the reason she searched it. Wasser also said Altoona PD policy allows police to search property for “search incident to arrest.”
Mangione’s backpack was searched without a warrant, according to testimony.
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Body-worn camera footage from McDonald’s shows Mangione being searched by three police officers while Wasser and Officer Stephen Fox go through his backpack nearby. Wasser testified she found “wet, grey underwear” and that when she unrolled the Hanes boxer briefs, inside was a gun magazine full of bullets. In the footage, she holds up the magazine and smiles. “It’s fucking him, one hundred percent,” Fox says. “It’s fucking him.”
The officers briefly continued searching Mangione’s backpack — Fox testified that he was also concerned about explosives in the bag — before packing it up and heading toward the door. (Lead defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo later asked Wasser why she didn’t clear the restaurant if she was worried about an explosive. Wasser responded that she would have if they’d found a bomb.) Officers and supervisors got into a discussion at the door about whether or not they needed a search warrant to continue searching the bag. A few officers can be heard saying that because they know about the United Healthcare shooting, they should wait and let the FBI “do their thing,” while Fox and other officers say that they can search it based on Altoona’s “search incident to arrest” policy.
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On the body-worn camera footage, Fox is shown placing a large McDonald’s bag full of evidence, including Mangione’s laptop, into the trunk of his SUV. Wasser takes the backpack with her. However, when Wasser gets to the Altoona precinct, 11 minutes after leaving the McDonald’s, she has both the brown fast-food bag and the backpack.
Wasser testifies that Fox was called back to the McDonald’s, so she and Fox pulled over on the way to the precinct so he could give her the bag. She did not have her body-worn camera footage on after she left McDonald’s until she parked at the precinct, nor did she have the camera on her police vehicle on. Fox turned off his body-worn camera when leaving the McDonald’s, as well — he said the camera is not typically activated when he transports evidence or drives without a prisoner.
A photo of the clothing inside Mangione’s backpack was shown in court.
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During cross-examination, Friedman Agnifilo accused Wasser of searching the backpack when they stopped on the side of the road. She asked whether Wasser opened it on camera to find the gun on the top of the bag because she’d already known it was there. Wasser repeatedly said this was “not accurate.” Fox testified that the exchange took about 10 seconds, and at no time did anyone search the backpack.
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Camera footage also entered into evidence included Wasser’s search of the backpack at the Altoona precinct. She moves the backpack to the hallway outside of Mangione’s view after she is seen finding the gun. Wasser is shown going through the backpack with other police officers, as they try to determine what would be helpful “evidentiary information” for the New York City case.
Lists allegedly written by Mangione were found in his backpack.
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Throughout the day, prosecutor Joel Seidemann referred to Thompson’s murder as an “execution” and the red notebook found in Mangione’s backpack as a “manifesto,” which the defense repeatedly objected to. Another objection from Friedman Agnifilo came when the prosecution entered a handwritten paper into evidence and said that on the front and back were notes of Mangione’s “possible escape routes.”
The handwritten notes had a Dec. 5 checklist on it, including “change hat,” “change black shoes (white stripes too distinctive)” and “pluck eyebrows.” Thompson was killed on Dec. 4. On the back of this paper, there was a note to check Pittsburgh red-eyes, ideally to Columbus or [Cincinnati] with a reminder to “get off early.”
“Keep momentum, FBI slower overnight,” reads the note. It also reads, “check reports for current situation.” On the bottom of the note are hand-drawn maps of Pennsylvania and Ohio with cities marked on them.
When Fox took the stand, he, like the previous police officers, said he’d received information about the UHC shooting from watching Fox News. Fox characterized Thompson’s death as both a “violent act of cowardice that targeted a defenseless human being” and a “clear, targeted assassination of an individual in the hierarchy of healthcare.”
Hand-drawn maps show Pennsylvania and Ohio with cities marked.
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Friedman Agnifilo later pointed out to Fox that he spoke extremely rapidly while reading Mangione his Miranda rights — “Would it surprise you that you said 98 words in 15 seconds?” — and said he did not end by asking Mangione, “keeping all these rights in mind, do you wish to speak with me?”
“Instead, what you did is you assured him that he wasn’t in custody,” said Friedman Agnifilo. “The reason you did that is because you thought he had a better chance of getting him to say something to you, isn’t it?” Fox responded that wasn’t true. On camera, Mangione shakes his head no when asked if he wants to talk to police, but Fox claimed he “didn’t take his little head shake there as a no” which is why he asked Mangione why he had a fake ID. At this point, Mangione states he is invoking his right to remain silent. Soon after, he is frisked and cuffed.
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While testifying, Fox claimed that when he escorted Mangione out of his Pennsylvania arraignment, Mangione looked at all of the press and public at the hearing and said, “All these people here for a mass murderer, wild.”
It was unclear who Fox was claiming Mangione was calling a mass murderer. (The comments Mangione made were not shown on any camera footage, these remarks are solely based on Fox’s testimony. The defense will have an opportunity to ask about this allegation in cross examination.) Fox testified that during this conversation, Mangione tripped and Fox apologized for forgetting he was shackled on his ankles. He says Mangione responded, “It’s OK, I’m going to have to get used to it.”
