The man accused of fatally shooting the CEO of UnitedHealthcare pleaded not responsible on Monday to homicide and terror expenses whereas his lawyer complained that statements coming from New York’s mayor would make it robust for him to obtain a good trial.
Luigi Mangione, 26, was shackled and seated in a Manhattan court docket when he leaned over to a microphone to enter his plea. The Manhattan district lawyer formally charged him final week with a number of counts of homicide, together with homicide as an act of terrorism, in a state case that can run parallel to his federal prosecution.
His preliminary look in New York’s state’s trial court docket was preempted by federal prosecutors bringing their very own expenses over the taking pictures. The federal expenses might carry the potential for the loss of life penalty, whereas the utmost sentence for the state expenses is life in jail with out parole.
Prosecutors have stated the 2 instances will proceed on parallel tracks, with the state expenses anticipated to go to trial first.
Certainly one of Mangione’s attorneys instructed the choose that authorities officers, together with New York Mayor Eric Adams, have turned Mangione right into a political pawn, robbing him of his rights as a defendant and tainting the jury pool.
“I’m very involved about my consumer’s proper to a good trial,” stated Karen Friedman Agnifilo.
“It is a younger man,” she stated. “He’s being handled like a human pingpong ball between warring jurisdictions right here.”
Get day by day Nationwide information
Get the day’s prime information, political, financial, and present affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox as soon as a day.
State trial court docket Choose Gregory Carro responded that he has little management over what occurs outdoors the courtroom, however stated he can assure that Mangione will obtain a good trial.
Authorities say Mangione gunned down Brian Thompson as he was strolling to an investor convention in midtown Manhattan on the morning of Dec 4.
Mangione was arrested in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s after a five-day search, carrying a gun that matched the one used within the taking pictures and a faux ID, police stated. He additionally was carrying a pocket book expressing hostility towards the medical health insurance trade and particularly rich executives, in line with federal prosecutors.
At a information convention asserting the state expenses final Tuesday, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg stated the applying of the terrorism regulation mirrored the severity of a “scary, well-planned, focused homicide that was meant to trigger shock and a focus and intimidation.”
“In its most elementary phrases, this was a killing that was meant to evoke terror,” he added. “And we’ve seen that response.”
Karen Friedman Agnifilo, an lawyer for Mangione, has accused federal and state prosecutors of advancing conflicting authorized theories. In federal court docket final week, she known as their strategy “very complicated” and “extremely uncommon.”
Mangione is being held in a Brooklyn federal jail alongside a number of different high-profile defendants, together with Sean “Diddy” Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried.
Mangione was extradited from Pennsylvania on Thursday and shortly rushed to New York Metropolis, the place he was seen sporting an orange jumpsuit as he was led away from a helicopter by closely armed law enforcement officials and New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams.
Adams stated he hoped to ship a message to the suspect: “I needed to look him within the eye and say you carried out this terroristic act in my metropolis — the town that the folks of New York love,” the mayor instructed a neighborhood TV station. “I needed to be there to point out the symbolism of that.”
An Ivy-league graduate from a outstanding Maryland household, Mangione appeared to have reduce himself off from household and buddies in latest months. He posted ceaselessly in on-line boards about his struggles with again ache. He was by no means a UnitedHealthcare consumer, in line with the insurer.
Thompson, a married father of two high-schoolers, had labored on the big UnitedHealth Group for 20 years and have become CEO of its insurance coverage arm in 2021.
The killing has prompted some to voice their resentment at U.S. well being insurers, with Mangione serving as a stand-in for frustrations over protection denials and hefty medical payments. It additionally has despatched shockwaves by way of the company world, rattling executives who say they’ve acquired a spike in threats.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
Source link