Luigi Mangione, the man accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel last year, returns to New York state court Monday for the start of a complex pretrial hearing that could shape how the prosecution unfolds.
Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to nine state counts, as well as four federal charges filed separately. The federal charges come with the possibility of the death penalty.
The hearing could last at least a week. Marc Agnifilo, one of Mangione’s attorneys, said he expects prosecutors to call as many as 28 witnesses — including some from Altoona, Pennsylvania, where Mangione was apprehended last December at a McDonald’s restaurant days after the shooting.
The proceedings are set to be divided into two sections. Both will focus on whether any evidence or statements were obtained illegally and should be excluded from trial.
In the first part, known as a Mapp hearing, Judge Gregory Carro will hear testimony and arguments before deciding whether the police had a legal right to obtain physical evidence.
In the second, known as a Huntley hearing, Carro will review evidence before ruling whether statements Mangione made to law enforcement were coerced or obtained in violation of his rights.
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Karen Agnifilo, another Mangione attorney, said the defense is not expecting a third section known as a Mosley hearing, which focuses on whether a non-eyewitness can testify about whether a person in a video or photo is Mangione.
Mangione’s attorneys have asked Carro to block prosecutors from introducing the contents of a red notebook that was allegedly found in his backpack when he was arrested Dec. 9, 2024, following a five-day manhunt that drew national attention.
Karen Agnifolo said in a court filing that entering the notebook and other writings, including two notes, would “irreparably prejudice Mr. Mangione at his multiple upcoming trials.”
Mangione’s defense team has requested that witnesses be prohibited from testifying about the content of his writings or characterizing them in any way, including referring to any text as a “manifesto,” which Karen Agnifilo described as a “prejudicial, invented law enforcement label.”
Karen Agnifilo has argued that prosecutors should be limited to using photographs of the notebook’s exterior and other writings that do not reveal their contents.
Authorities have said Mangione was carrying a backpack containing a ghost gun, fake IDs, and a notebook and other writings detailing his grievances with the health care system.
Included was a three-page handwritten document that referred to the health care industry and included the phrase “these parasites simply had it coming,” law enforcement sources have told NBC News.
In a statement, Karen Agnifolo said that "law enforcement has methodically and purposefully trampled his [Mangione’s] constitutional rights by interrogating him without Miranda warnings in violation of the Fifth Amendment and illegally searching his property without a warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment.”
The defense team has also asked the court to allow him to remain unshackled throughout the hearing.
Mangione is accused of fatally shooting Thompson, 50, in the back Dec. 4, 2024, while Thompson was heading to a UnitedHealthcare investor conference in Manhattan.
The killing provoked a nationwide conversation about the health insurance industry and put a national spotlight on Mangione, who was decried by some as a violent extremist and defended by others as an avatar for anger over the insurance industry.
The state charges against Mangione include one count of murder in the second degree; seven counts of various criminal possession of a weapon charges; and one count of second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument.
Mangione originally faced 11 state charges. But in September, Carro tossed out two of the more severe counts: first-degree murder in furtherance of an act of terrorism and second-degree murder as a crime of terrorism.
Carro ruled those charges were “legally insufficient.”
