Luigi Mangione was on “constant watch” after his arrest in Pennsylvania last year in part because the state prison where he was held wanted to avoid an “Epstein-style situation,” a corrections officer testified Monday at a pretrial hearing.
Mangione is accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel last year. He has pleaded not guilty to nine state counts and four federal charges.
The prison guard’s testimony referred to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who died in federal custody in 2019 while awaiting prosecution on sex-trafficking charges. Epstein’s death was ruled a suicide.
“I had to fill out a form about his movements about seven times an hour,” Tomas Rivers, the guard, told the court, referring to Mangione.
Rivers took the stand during the first of a series of hearings focused on Mangione’s lawyers’ efforts to exclude evidence from his state murder trial.
The proceedings are expected to last at least a week.
Rivers went on to describe conversations he had with Mangione at SCI Huntingdon, the Pennsylvania state prison where he was locked up after his arrest at a McDonald’s restaurant last December days after the shooting
They discussed Mangione’s travels in Vietnam, the differences between “third world” countries and the West, how a person’s socioeconomic background affects their happiness, and how private health insurance compares to nationalized health care, Rivers testified.
Rivers testified that Mangione told him about a “gang fight” with “ladyboys.” The New York Times has reported that Mangione claimed he had been beaten up by seven “ladyboys” during a trip to Thailand, where the term is used to refer to transgender women.
NBC News has not independently verified that report, which was drawn from Mangione’s messages on WhatsApp.
Mangione and Rivers also discussed literature, including the work of George Orwell and Henry David Thoreau as well as Aldous Huxley’s “The Doors of Perception,” an autobiographical book about the author’s experience with psychedelic drugs.
Rivers said Mangione told him he was “disappointed” that some had likened him to Ted Kaczynski, the domestic terrorist more commonly known as the “Unabomber.”
“He asked if the media was focused on him as a person or the crime that was committed,” Rivers added, describing Mangione’s general demeanor and speech as “precise, logical and coherent.”
Mangione, 27, wearing a gray suit jacket over a red and white checkered shirt, appeared largely expressionless during the hearing. He occasionally took notes as witnesses spoke.
Judge Gregory Carro allowed Mangione to change into civilian clothes at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn before he was transported to New York City Criminal Court, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
The courtroom was crammed with reporters, security officers and some of Mangione’s supporters, who have fervently defended him online since his arrest in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
At least one supporter was seen wearing a T-shirt that read: “Justice is not a spectacle.”
The people gathered in the courtroom Monday heard audio from a 911 call placed by the manager at the McDonald’s in Altoona where Mangione was arrested on Dec. 9, 2024.
In the recording, the manager can be heard saying that customers had spotted a man who resembled the “CEO shooter,” clad in a “black jacket with a medical mask and a tan beanie.”
“He has his beanie pulled down so you can only see his eyebrows,” the manager can be heard saying. “I don’t know what to do here, guys.”
The police dispatcher can be heard telling the manager to keep an eye on Mangione.
Mangione is accused of fatally shooting Thompson, 50, in the back on Dec. 4, 2024, while Thompson was heading to a UnitedHealthcare investor conference in Manhattan.
The killing set off a nationwide conversation about the health insurance industry and focused national attention on Mangione, who was decried by some as a violent extremist and defended by others as an avatar for rage over the insurance industry.
The state charges against Mangione include one count of murder in the second degree; seven counts of various weapons 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.
