A New York state judge has dismissed terrorism charges against Luigi Mangione, the man accused over the shooting dead of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson late last year, but he retained the state’s second-degree murder charges against the 27-year-old.
Mr Mangione’s lawyers argued that the New York case and a parallel federal death penalty prosecution amounted to double jeopardy.
Judge Gregory Carro rejected that argument, saying it would be premature to make such a determination.
This was Mr Mangione’s first court appearance in the state case since February. He has attracted a cult following over his alleged actions as a representative of frustrations with the health insurance industry.
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Dozens of his supporters attended his last hearing, many wearing the Luigi video game character’s green colour as a symbol of solidarity. His April arraignment in the federal case drew a similar attendance.
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In his written decision, the judge said that although there is no doubt that the killing was not ordinary street crime, New York law does not consider an action to be terrorism simply because it was motivated by ideology.
“While the defendant was clearly expressing an animus toward UHC, and the healthcare industry generally, it does not follow that his goal was to ‘intimidate and coerce a civilian population’, and indeed, there was no evidence presented of such a goal,” Judge Carro wrote.
The judge scheduled pretrial hearings in the case for December 1st, which is days before Mr Mangione is next due in court for the federal case against him.
Mr Mangione pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of murder, including murder as an act of terrorism, after the December 4th 2024 killing.
Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting Mr Thompson from behind as he arrived for an investor conference at the New York Hilton Midtown.
Police say “delay”, “deny” and “depose” were scrawled on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase commonly used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
Mr Mangione was arrested five days later after he was spotted eating breakfast at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 370km west of New York City. Since then, he has been held at the same Brooklyn federal jail where Sean “Diddy” Combs is locked up.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office contends that there are no double jeopardy issues because neither of Mr Mangione’s cases has gone to trial and because the state and federal prosecutions involve different legal theories.
Mr Mangione’s lawyers say the duelling cases have created a “legal quagmire” that makes it “legally and logistically impossible to defend against them simultaneously”.
The state charges, which carry a maximum of life in prison, allege that Mr Mangione wanted to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population”, that is, insurance employees and investors. The federal charges allege that Mr Mangione stalked Mr Thompson and do not involve terrorism allegations.
US attorney general Pam Bondi announced in April that she was directing federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for “an act of political violence” and a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America”.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office quoted extensively from Mr Mangione’s handwritten diary in a court filing seeking to uphold his state murder charges. They highlighted his alleged desire to kill a top insurance executive and his alleged praise for Ted Kaczynski, the late terrorist known as the Unabomber.
In the writings, prosecutors said, Mr Mangione mused about rebelling against “the deadly, greed-fuelled health insurance cartel”.
They also cited a confession they say he penned “To the feds”, in which he wrote that “it had to be done”.
Mr Mangione’s “intentions were obvious from his acts, but his writings serve to make those intentions explicit”, prosecutors said in the June filing.
The writings, which they sometimes described as a manifesto, “convey one clear message: that the murder of Brian Thompson was intended to bring about revolutionary change to the healthcare industry”. - AP
