Luigi Mangione, the man accused of shooting and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on the streets of New York last year, appeared in state court once more on Monday for a key pretrial hearing to decide what evidence may be shown to the jury.
Thompson’s Dec. 4 death outside his midtown Manhattan hotel sparked an enormous manhunt that ended five days later when local police approached him inside a rural Pennsylvania McDonald’s — which was the subject of much of the hearing.
Mangione’s lawyers argue that there were problems with the way the local police carried out his arrest, having apparently searched him and seized his belongings before obtaining a warrant for them.
The defense is trying to convince New York Supreme Court Judge Gregory Carro to bar certain crucial pieces of evidence from the trial. Those include a red notebook and other writings allegedly recovered from Mangione’s backpack that supposedly reference the killing, along with statements he made to police before they read him his Miranda rights.
In the Manhattan courtroom, security camera footage from the McDonald’s was shown along with audio from an emergency call made by one of the employees, who was alerted to Mangione’s resemblance to the New York shooting suspect. Mangione was wearing a face mask that left his characteristic bushy eyebrows visible.
The older female customer who recognized him was “really upset,” the employee who called 911 said, according to ABC News, but the employee did not want to approach Mangione.
Tomas Rivers, a correctional officer who oversaw Mangione while he was held at a Pennsylvania state prison, took the witness stand to share details about his time there, according to The Associated Press. The officer said Mangione wanted to talk to him, as he was being held away from all the other prisoners out of fear that one of them might leak information about him to the press. He was also being watched around the clock, the officer said, because prison officials wanted to avoid “an Epstein-style situation,” referencing the disgraced financier’s 2019 jail cell death.
Rivers reportedly testified that he discussed health care with Mangione, including the difference between private and nationalized systems.
In a recent court filing, Mangione’s lawyers said that the notebook and other pieces of evidence found in his backpack would “irreparably prejudice” him at trial.
The judge may agree that the items were seized improperly but ultimately allow them to be presented in court, because they would have been found on his person in due course anyway.
Some of the writings have already made their way into the public domain: In the wake of Mangione’s arrest, the text of his so-called “manifesto” was published on Substack, and portions later appeared in court filings.
Notably, Mangione’s lawyers also want Carro to bar prosecutors from referring to any of the writings as a “manifesto,” arguing it is a “prejudicial, invented law-enforcement label.”
They told Carro they intend to call two witnesses this week to make their arguments; both are members of the Altoona Police Department in Pennsylvania.
Mangione is charged with Thompson’s murder at both the state level, in New York, and the federal level, which carries the possibility of the death penalty. Despite the high stakes in Mangione’s federal trial, the state case is moving along more quickly and could go to trial next year.
