Luigi Mangione appeared in New York state court in Manhattan on Tuesday, as part of a pretrial court hearing for charges brought against him in the Dec. 4, 2024, murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione, who has pleaded not guilty to all state and federal charges against him, had his last state court appearance in February.
During the hearing, Mangione’s terrorism charges were dismissed, with Judge Gregory Carro ruling the evidence as “legally insufficient.” Mangione will still face second-degree murder charges in New York. And though his lawyers, led by attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo, wanted to have the state indictment entirely dismissed because of the simultaneous federal case against him, Carro ruled that any claim of double jeopardy is too premature.
Mangione’s motion to delay the state case was also denied. A trial will begin on Dec. 1.
Carro ruled that state prosecutors placed too much emphasis on the phrase “revolutionary anarchism” in Mangione’s writings. Carro writes: “Not only does this stretch the import of a two-word phrase beyond what it can carry, but it ignores other, more explicit excerpts from defendant’s writings in which he states that his goal is to spread a ‘message’ and ‘win public support’ about ‘everything wrong with our health system.’ Therefore, the court finds that the People failed to establish an intent to ‘influence” or ‘affect’ government.”
Carro went on to talk about how difficult the word “terrorism” is to define and said he does not believe the employees of a company constitute a “civilian population.” He added, “While the defendant was clearly expressing an animus toward UHC, and the health care industry generally, it does not follow that his goal was to ‘intimidate and coerce a civilian population,’ and indeed, there was no evidence presented of such a goal.”
In previous filings, Friedman Agnifilo argued that the multiple legal cases violate the double jeopardy clause. If the state case is not thrown out, she has asked Judge Gregory Carro to dismiss terrorism charges against Mangione and suppress evidence obtained during his arrest at an Altoona, Pennsylvania, McDonald’s on Dec. 9. His legal team claims the arrest violated his constitutional rights in an illegal search and seizure.
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In turn, the prosecution, led by Joel Seidemann, has asked the judge to force Mangione’s team to reveal whether they will be providing psychiatric evidence of any “mental disease or defect” he may have in pursuit of an insanity defense. On Tuesday, Carro told the defense that they must comply with the prosecution’s request.
Inside the courtroom on Tuesday, Mangione arrived in tan prison garb, shackled. He was mostly quiet with his head down, occasionally speaking to members of his legal team. In contrast to his last state court appearance he did not have a bulletproof vest. As he was led out, he glanced briefly at his supporters sitting in the back row.
About two dozen members of the public entered the courtroom to observe the hearing; most were women, with a handful of them wearing green (the color has become a symbol of support for Mangione, a reference to the Luigi character in Nintendo’s Mario Bros. franchise). One woman who was in court, dressed in a bright green leopard dress with green socks and black heels, spoke with Rolling Stone after the appearance. She asked to be identified as Lena NW, and said she had flown in from Los Angeles and slept outside of the courthouse overnight in order to attend the hearing. “The terrorism charges were dropped so I was glad to hear that, but it’s all still very scary and unusual for him to have both New York state and a federal charge against him for the same crime,” Lena says.
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Mangione, 27, faces multiple charges in federal court, as well as New York state and Pennsylvania state courts. One of the charges in federal court makes him eligible for the death penalty, and because of this, his legal team is fighting to get his federal trial pulled ahead of his New York state trial date.
During Mangione’s federal court appearance in April, Friedman Agnifilo revealed New York State prosecutors had told her they’d “inadvertently” listened to calls between Mangione and his legal team. Friedman Agnifilo also filed paperwork claiming that the state prosecution violated Mangione’s rights under HIPAA by obtaining access to confidential, privileged information from his health insurance provider. On Tuesday, Carro said he has not made judgments about the legality of the Aetna subpoena, but he said state prosecutors cannot use anything from it.
Additionally, Friedman Agnifilo criticized New York State prosecutors for publishing in filings excerpts from a notebook they say Mangione used as a journal to plan Thompson’s murder. The notebook was allegedly found on Mangione when he was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, five days after the shooting. In the filing with the notebook excerpts, state prosecutors argued that the terrorism charges against Mangione are appropriate because, they claimed, his intent was to “violently broadcast a social and political message to the public at large.”
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Federal prosecutors have also filed legal motions claiming Mangione “poses a continuing danger” because he has “sought to influence others.” A footnote in these filing links to a conservative website, which claims Shane Tamura, who opened fire in the NFL’s Manhattan office, was following in the footsteps of Mangione. Mangione’s legal team responded on Sept. 5 saying Mangione “condemns these very acts of violence that the Government is attempting to attribute as being inspired by him.”
A Pennsylvania court has requested he appear in person for firearms-related charges on Nov. 7, although Mangione is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. His next federal court date is on Dec. 5 in Manhattan.
