Luigi Mangione charged with first-degree murder in UnitedHealthcare murder

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Luigi Mangione has been charged with first-degree murder in New York in what prosecutors describe as the “horrific, orchestrated and targeted” killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson ).

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the 26-year-old Ivy League graduate was arrested last week by local police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and has been formally charged with one count of “promoting terrorism.” doctrine” first-degree murder. and two counts of second-degree murder, one of which was charged as “homicide as a terrorist act.” He also faces several lesser charges, including unlawful possession of a weapon.

“This was a horrifying, carefully planned, targeted murder designed to shock . . . and intimidate,” Bragg told reporters on Tuesday.

The most serious charge is first-degree murder, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Mangione is being held without bail in Pennsylvania and is due in District Court Thursday morning.

New York authorities are seeking to bring Mangione back to the city to face charges. Bragg said Mangione may waive a hearing on his extradition request, which could keep him in custody in New York this weekend.

The indictments returned by the grand jury – including a decision to seek the top charge of first-degree murder – exposed the seriousness with which New York authorities treated the slaying of an executive at the largest U.S. health insurance company, shocking New York and corporate America. .

Bragg’s office also revealed more details about the ongoing investigation. They said Mangione, an engineering graduate, arrived in New York a week before Thompson was murdered and checked into an Upper West Side hotel on Nov. 24 using a fake New Jersey ID.

Prosecutors said Mangione extended his stay at the hotel and left early on Dec. 4 to wait for Thompson outside the downtown Manhattan hotel where he was staying ahead of UnitedHealth’s Investor Day. Thompson was shot in the back and in the leg and died after being taken to a hospital.

Bragg claimed that Mangione shot the executive using a “3D-printed ghost gun equipped with a 3D-printed suppressor.” “These weapons are increasingly proliferating in New York City and across the country. . . . As this tragedy demonstrates, they are just as deadly as traditional firearms,” ​​Bragg added.

In the wake of the killings, there has been a morbid wave of admiration and celebration in some corners of the internet, especially for the U.S. health care system.

“We saw a shocking and horrific celebration of cold-blooded murder,” New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Tuesday.

“We do not celebrate murder, nor do we worship the killing of anyone. Any attempt to rationalize this is despicable, reckless, and offensive to our deeply held principles of justice.