Luigi Mangione, charged in the December ambush shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is indeed a terrorist, a New York prosecutor said in a court filing Wednesday night.
Some 40 UHC executives were so afraid after the murder that they enlisted bodyguards, the prosecutor argued in an 82-page rebuke of defense lawyers’ efforts to get Mangione’s state terrorism charge dropped.
One exec who received death threats dyed her hair and moved to a temporary home out of fear she might be harmed next, the new court filing said.
Thompson’s December 4 “assassination” on a Midtown Manhattan sidewalk does not reflect a robbery or personal vendetta, wrote the lead state prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann, citing the writings Mangione left behind for law enforcement.
In the writings, Mangione “made crystal clear that his target was the insurance industry,” Seidemann wrote.
The prosecutor noted that the defendant’s manifesto hoped the shooting would “hit a real blow to the company financials” and referred to Thompson as “a greedy bastard that had it coming.”
“Brian Thompson and UHC were simply symbols of the healthcare industry and what defendant considered a deadly greed-fueled cartel,” Seidemann wrote.
The murder had the desired effect, fueling a panic in the company and the wider healthcare insurance industry, the filing said.
“To a limited extent, defendant achieved his dastardly goals by inspiring a vocal minority of individuals to engage in a broader campaign of threats of violence against UHC employees and other health insurance workers,” he wrote.
The filing gave the clearest peek yet into the grand jury that voted to indict Mangione on state terrorism charges.
It said an executive of UHC parent company UnitedHealth Group described to the jurors the pro-Mangione posters that appeared in New York City days after the murder.
The posters showed Thompson with his face covered by an “X” alongside the faces two other UHC executives.
Grand jurors heard of the broader impact the murder had on the company, Wednesday’s filing said.
UHC doctors and civilians involved in sending out coverage denial letters “feared for their safety and requested they not be required to sign their names to the denials,” the filing said grand jurors were told.
Plainclothes police were hired to protect UHC headquarters in Minnesota, some UHC physicians quit their jobs in fear, and the company advised employees not to wear company-branded clothing in public, the filing also said grand jurors learned.
Prior to their vote to indict Mangione on murder as an act of terrorism, the grand jury also heard a UHC call center recording.
In response to the question, “Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with?” a caller says, “You are gonna hang,” and “You know what that means. That means the killing of Brian Thompson was just a start. There are a lot more that are gonna be taken out.”
There were several similar calls made to the center, the filing said.
“Defendant’s sensational assassination of Brian Thompson at the annual investor conference was certainly not a normal street crime,” the filing said.
“Defendant demonstrated in his manifesto that he was a revolutionary anarchist who would usher in a better healthcare system by killing the CEO of the fourth-largest company in the United States by market cap,” it said. “This brutal, cowardly murder was the mechanism that the defendant chose to bring on that revolution.”
Mangione was arrested in Pennsylvania on December 9, 2024, after a five-day manhunt over the shooting death of Thompson in Manhattan. Thompson was attending a healthcare convention, which he was about to enter when he was killed.
Mangione, an Ivy League graduate and son of a prominent Maryland family, was first charged with local gun and forgery charges in Pennsylvania.
Then, both New York and federal prosecutors brought their own charges, including the state’s murder as an act of terrorism count, which carries a potential maximum sentence of life without parole.
The government has said it intends to seek the death penalty for Mangione’s federal murder charge.
Mangione’s defense team in May argued in a 57-page New York state filing that there is no evidence showing he intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, which is required to prove their charge of murder as a crime of terrorism.
“Applying New York’s terrorism statute to this case would impermissibly trivialize and redefine the Legislature’s definition of terrorism,” Mangione’s attorneys wrote.
Since he was named as a suspect, Mangione has attracted a following of sympathizers who flock to the courthouses where he’s scheduled to appear, send him mail, and voice their support online.
On Wednesday, lawyers for Mangione asked the state court judge to allow him to appear at his next state court hearing, scheduled for June 26, unshackled and without the bulletproof vest he has previously been required to wear in court.
“The authorities — both state and federal — have already prejudiced Mr. Mangione in the media more than virtually any defendant in recent memory,” the lawyers wrote. “This commenced with the NYC
Mayor-led staged perp walk, and it continues until today.”
By bringing him to court in shackles and a vest, authorities are crafting a “false narrative” that Mangione is in unusual danger or requires extra security, they wrote.
“There is no disputing that he has been a model prisoner, a model defendant in court, and has treated everyone in the court and prison system with cooperation and respect,” the lawyers wrote.
Mangione’s state-level judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro, has yet to weigh in publicly on the handcuffs or the defense request that the terrorism charge be dismissed.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to — and continued to fight — all three of his indictments.
Read the full article here
