The lawyer of Luigi Mangione in Pennsylvania continues to claim that the Altoona police hold the suspect of the murder unlawfully and searched his belongings when they identified him at a McDonald’s after a tip.
Mangione, 26, is charged with first-degree murder in furtherance of an act of terrorism, stalking and a slew of other state and federal charges in both New York and Pennsylvania, for allegedly gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a married father of two, on a sidewalk in Manhattan in December 2024.
Now his lawyer says that the use of the authorities of the word ‘manifesto’ to describe the writings of Mangione who were reported in his backpack during his arrest on December 9 is ‘incorrect’.
“The use of this characterization of the alleged personal experiences and writings of the defendant is incorrect, inappropriate and without justification and has no evidence,” said defense lawyer Thomas Dickey, established in Altoona in a Tuesday court. “The suspect is of the opinion that this characterization was so only done to harm the suspect and bring him to the public in a negative light, all in an attempt to harm a potential jury pool.”
Naar verluidt schoot Mangione Thompson buiten het hotel in Manhattan, waar de jaarlijkse aandeelhoudersconferentie van UnitedHealthcare werd gehouden, in een handeling was aanklagers dat bedoeld was om een boodschap te sturen naar de zorgverzekeringsbranche op basis van een manifest die op de verdachte werd gearresteerd toen hij dagen na de moord op Thompson werd gearresteerd.
In his writings, Mangione apparently expressed his complaints with the health care industry – in particular the mention of UnitedHealthcare and the shareholders’ conference where Thompson was on its way to New York at the time of the murder.
Dickey asks the court not to describe the alleged writings of Mangione as a ‘manifesto’.
He also asks the court to suppress various other evidence, including what Dickey describes as a justified search for the backpack of the suspect, statements made to the police during his arrest and DNA certificate material.
Mangione’s lawyer argued that Mangione had been held incorrectly and arrested at the McDonald’s, so determined evidence that was collected during that arrest, should not be submitted as evidence against his client.
The 26-year-old suspect has a diploma from the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania and went to an elite private-drug school in Baltimore.
Despite the characterization of a number of supporters of him as an anti-capitalist crusader, he would reportedly stop at a New York City Starbucks for coffee minutes for the murder and eventually arrested while eating Hashbrowns at McDonald’s.
Mangione is accused of “carefully” planning the murder with the motive to ignite a “public discussion about health care,” said the US Department of Justice.
Prosecutors in New York said Mangione had been deported to travel to New York; Find Thompson, a resident of Minnesota in the city for the annual shareholders’ conference of UnitedHealthcare; And kill him.
Mangione is said to have shot Thompson from behind with a 3D-printed ghost gun and suppressor.
The NYPD released a stationary image from surveillance video, from which he shows that he pulled his face mask down and smiled while flirting with a servant at the check-in of the Manhattan hostel where the police say he was staying for the murder. It went viral and immediately pulled a wave of support online for the accused murderer.
The suspect is said to have fled the scene of Thompson, rode a bike to a bus station and took a bus to Altoona, where he was eventually identified and arrested.
Mangione is originally from Maryland and recently lived in California and Hawaii.
He graduated in 2016 as Valedictorian at the Gilman School, a private, All-Boys High School in Baltimore, in 2016.
Mangione obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degree in the computer science of the University of Pennsylvania in 2020.
