April 25 (UPI) — Luigi Mangione is scheduled to be arraigned Friday in federal court, and prosecutors have made it clear that they will seek a death sentence should he be convicted.
Mangione is expected to plead not guilty on counts in connection to the shooting death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Among the counts of which he’s accused is murder through use of a firearm, which makes him eligible for capital punishment.
Mangione has already pleaded not guilty to murder and terrorism charges in New York, and gun possession and other charges in Pennsylvania. His defense team has requested that capital punishment not be an option for Mangione, and said in a court filing that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s public statements in regard to the death penalty that her “public statements have significantly prejudiced this case, the New York State case, and the federal grand jury presentation.”
Bondi expressed earlier in April that she would seek the death penalty for Mangione “as we carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again,” and in line with a statement she made in February that she planned to lift the moratorium on federal executions.
Mangione allegedly traveled to New York City in December of 2024, waited for Thompson then shot him in the back and leg on a Manhattan sidewalk. He then purportedly fled New York and was recognized in a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania five days later. Police arrived and arrested him, and authorities allege bullet casings found at the scene of the murder match a gun found in Mangione’s possession, and that his fingerprints were found on a protein bar wrapper and water bottle recovered from near where the shooting took place.
