NEW YORK (AP) – Luigi Mangione's lawyers urged a judge on Thursday to file his state murder in the killing of UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson, deeming the amount of the New York case and the parallel federal death penalty prosecution amount to double danger.
If not, they hope to dismiss the terrorism charges and ban the evidence collected during the prosecutor's arrest last December, including 9mm pistols, ammunition and notebooks, and authorities say he described his intention to “wack” the insurance executive.
Mangione's attorney also wants to exclude his remarks from a McDonald's Restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after five days of searching, at a McDonald's Restaurant 230 miles west of New York City.
The prosecutor said among other things, the Ivy League graduate “is apologizing to the officers for your inconvenience and expressed concern to McDonald’s employees, reminding them of his whereabouts and saying, “A lot of people will be upset that I was arrested.” ”
Thompson killed people outside the Manhattan Hotel on December 4, “causing a legal tug of war between state and federal prosecutors as they fought to control the fate of 26-year-old Luigi Mangione,” his attorneys Karen Friedman Agnifilo, Marc Agnifilo, Marc Agnifilo and Jacob Kaplan wrote in Feles on the 57th floor.
They called it a “unprecedented prosecutorship” in the third case in Pennsylvania involving gun ownership and other charges. They said prosecutors are working to bite two people on the apple to convict Mr. Mangiang of murder.
“However, despite the greatest impact on Mr. Mangion, law enforcement has methodically and purposefully trampled on his constitutional rights,” his lawyer wrote. They claimed officials asked him without telling him that he had the right to remain silent and had no warrant to search his property.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said it will respond in court documents.
The defense’s request to end or limit Mangione’s state case can preview its legal strategy for federal murders, which intends to seek death penalty. The state's charges put the biggest punishment for life in prison.
Mangione turned 27 on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty in either case. He has been held in Brooklyn federal prison since he was rushed to New York by plane and helicopter after authorities were arrested.
Mangione will return to court in the state case on June 26, when Justice Gregory Carro is expected to make a decision based on a firing request. The next federal court date is December 5, one day after Thompson's death. In either case, no trial date is set.
Prosecutors have said they want the state case to be tried first, but Friedman Agnifilo said last week that she wants federal cases to be preferred because it involves the death penalty.
While seeking to dismiss the state case, Mangion's lawyers also asked Carlo to file charges accusing him of “promoting terrorism” killing terrorism. They believe that “there is absolutely no fact to support this theory” and accused him of violating the intent of the legislators under post-9/11 terrorist regulations.
Surveillance footage shows a masked gunman shooting Thompson from behind when the executive arrived at United Health’s annual investor meeting. Police said “delay,” “denial” and “destruction” were scratched on ammunition, mimicking phrases commonly used to describe insurance companies avoiding paying claims.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the ambush was “aiming to evoke horrific killings.”
Mangione's federal charges include murder by using a firearm that brings the possibility of death penalty, as well as two counts of stalking and one count of firearms.
Last month, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that she directed Manhattan federal prosecutors to seek death penalty for the killing, calling it “act of political violence” and suffered “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked the United States.”
The killings and searches that led to the arrest of Mangione shocked the business community, while inspiring health insurance critics who gathered around Mangione as frustration over coverage denials and large bills.
In a filing filed Thursday, Mangione's lawyers argued that the contradictory theory of state and federal cases (intention to “intimidate or coerce the civilian population” and acts of stalking one person – created a “legal quagmire” that made it “legally and logistically impossible to defend them at the same time.”
“This situation is so difficult constitutionally, that it is difficult for us to find a precedent for this unprecedented situation,” wrote Mangione's lawyer.
