THE man accused of assassinating the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare has faced a judge in New York City after being hit with new federal charges.
Luigi Mangione, 26, was flanked by dozens of heavily armed NYPD officials, including Mayor Eric Adams, after landing at a heliport near Wall Street in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon just minutes before his court appearance.
During the 15-minute hearing, Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker asked Mangione if he understands what he is accused of, and he responded, “Yes.” He also confirmed that he’s seen the federal complaint against him.
Mangione will remain in federal custody and his lawyers are not seeking bail at this time.
The NYPD helicopter carrying Mangione landed in downtown Manhattan at around 1 pm, hours after he gave news cameras a glaring stare while being escorted out of a Pennsylvania courthouse by New York detectives and shoved into a black SUV.
The NYPD’s show of force in their perp walk of Mangione at the Wall Street area heliport was an effort to combat the public outcry of support for the alleged assassin, according to CNN.
“The security around Mangione today is because of what they’ve been seeing in terms of the public support for him and their security worries about somebody not trying to attack him, but to try and free him from law enforcement,” John Miller, the outlet’s chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, said.
Immediately after his court appearance, NYPD detectives and Pennsylvania State Troops transported Mangione to Altoona Blair County Airport, where he boarded a Cessna 208 airplane to New York City.
“We relinquished him to the custody of the New York City Police Department, and they’ll be taking him back to New York City in a safe and secure manner,” Blair County District Attorney Peter Weeks told reporters.
RETURN TO THE BIG APPLE
Hours before he touched down in the Big Apple, NYPD officials set up dozens of metal barricades and deployed security outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse ahead of Mangione’s arrival.
Mangione arrived at Islip’s MacArthur Airport on Long Island at around 12:15 pm.
He was met by dozens of armed officers after debunking the small airplane and then boarding an NYPD helicopter.
The suspected assassin wore a bulletproof vest under his orange prison jumpsuit.
He is expected to appear in a Manhattan federal courtroom at 2 pm to be arraigned on murder charges, according to CNN.
FACING DEATH?
Mangione was hit with four federal counts, including murder through the use of a firearm, stalking, and firearm offenses, CNN reported.
The new federal charges could potentially allow prosecutors to push for a capital sentence.
The death penalty in New York State has been outlawed for decades, but the federal offenses could mean Mangione could be tried according to the national laws, The New York Times reported.
However, it’s still unclear if federal prosecutors will seek capital punishment.
The decision to seek the death penalty will fall on the Justice Department once President-elect Donald Trump takes office, according to The New York Times.
Mangione appeared calm during his extradition hearing in Pennsylvania on Thursday.
The alleged killer’s demeanor was the opposite of his December 10 court date, where he was dragged into the courthouse by police after fuming at the media that his arrest was “an insult to Americans.”
“He was smiling at times. He was chatting at times with some of the sheriff’s deputies as well, but mostly keeping his head down, reading and writing on some of the papers that he had in front of him,” CNN reported.
‘FREE LUIGI’
Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the Blair County Courthouse in Hollidaysburg, about 8 miles from Altoona, the county where Mangione was arrested on December 9, waiving “Free Luigi” and anti-insurance signs.
Supporters wore caps of the Nintendo Super Mario character Luigi in support of Mangione and held up signs that read, “Murder for profit is terrorism” and “Death by denial is murder.”
Mangione, 26, was charged with 11 criminal counts, including first-degree murder in what Manhattan prosecutors said was part of an act of terrorism.
It’s unfortunate that this happened and I’m not glorifying it in any way but it’s brought attention to the issue that affects all Americans.
“This was a killing to invoke terror,” Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, said on Tuesday.
“This was not an ordinary killing, not to suggest that any killing is ordinary, but this was extraordinary, and the New York State Legislature has set out both the paths, both the murder one and murder two.
“And this, we alleged, is squarely within those statutes which talk about intending to do exactly what we saw happen here.”
But despite law enforcement’s best efforts to demonize Mangione’s alleged crimes, the case has aroused a pack of morbid fans who have praised the suspect’s actions as heroic.
Mangione allegedly waited for UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson for half an hour outside the Hilton Hotel in Midtown on the morning of December 4.
Surveillance footage captured the moment a masked gun snuck up behind Thompson, who was on his way to an investors meeting, before firing three shots using a 3D-printed ghost gun, prosecutors said.
Thompson, 50, was struck in the back and leg and was transported to Mount Sinai West Hospital, where he died.
One protester outside the Blair County Courthouse on Thursday called Thompson’s killing “unfortunate” but criticized insurance companies that put “profit over people’s health.”
‘WE FEEL HIS ANGER’
“It’s unfortunate that this happened, and I’m not glorifying it in any way – but it’s brought attention to the issue that affects all Americans,” the woman, who only identified herself as Natalie, told ABC News.
“It has definitely woke people up. We hear him.”
Bragg said Mangione methodically carried out the brazen, “well-planned, targeted murder that was intended to cause shock, and attention, and intimidation.”
There is no heroism in what Mangione did.
New York City Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch condemned the people who praised Mangione’s actions as courageous.
“In the nearly two weeks since Mr. Thompson’s killing, we have seen a shocking and appalling celebration of cold-blooded murder,” Tisch said during a press conference on Tuesday.
“Social media has erupted with praise for this cowardly attack. People ghoulishly plastered posters threatening other CEOs with an X over Mr. Thompson’s picture as though he was some sort of sick trophy.
“Let me say this plainly, there is no heroism in what Mangione did.”
Tisch added, “This was a senseless act of violence. It was a cold and calculated crime that stole a life and put New Yorkers at risk.
“We don’t celebrate murders, and we don’t lionize the killing of anyone, and any attempt to rationalize this is vile, reckless, and offensive to our deeply held principles of justice.”
Prosecutors believe Mangione, a computer science graduate from the University of Pennsylvania who comes from a prominent family in Baltimore, was motivated by hatred toward the US healthcare system.
‘CHECKS EVERY BOX’
At the time of his arrest, Mangione was carrying a three-page handwritten manifesto that voiced his frustration about corporate greed and branded insurance companies “parasites.”
New details disclosed in the unsealed federal indictment against Mangione revealed the Ivy League graduate had been planning to kill Thompson as early as August 15.
An entry in the notebook read, “The details are finally coming together,” according to the court document.
“I’m glad – in a way – that I’ve procrastinated,” Mangione allegedly wrote, saying it gave him time to learn more about the company he was targeting.
“The Notebook entry also stated that ‘the target is insurance’ because ‘it checks every box,'” the indictment read.
Mangione allegedly penned, “This investor conference is a true windfall… and – most importantly – the message becomes self-evident.”
‘SOMETHING HE WOULD DO’
On Tuesday, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny revealed that an FBI field office in San Francisco forwarded a tip about a missing person case from November 18 to the department.
The San Francisco official told a task force officer that the individual at the center of the missing person case resembled the Midtown shooter.
The tip was received by the NYPD about two days after Thompson was assassinated outside the Hilton hotel.
Kenny said a task force officer vetted the San Francisco lead, which was one of four tips received that day.
Part of their investigation into the tip involved contacting Mangione’s mother, Kathleen Zannino, who reported her son missing on November 18 in San Francisco.
“They had a conversation where she didn’t indicate that it was son in the photograph, but said it might be something that she could see him doing,” Kenny said of the December 7 conversation.
Kathleen told police she had not spoken to her son since July 1, according to The New York Post.