Luigi Mangione pleads not guilty to federal charges in CEO killing

Luigi Mangione pleaded not guilty to a four-count indictment charging him in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson during his arraignment in New York federal court on Friday.

Mangione entered the Manhattan federal courtroom shackled at the ankles and wearing a beige jail uniform over a long-sleeve gray T-shirt.

With several rows of supporters looking on, Mangione stood and said "not guilty" when Judge Margaret Garnett asked how he pleaded to the charges in the indictment -- murder through the use of a firearm, firearms offense and two counts of stalking.

Federal prosecutor Dominic Gentile said the government does not anticipate adding charges against Mangione.

Most of the evidence involves that which has already been collected by the Manhattan district attorney's office, which has charged Mangione with murder. He has pleaded not guilty to the state charges.

The federal charge of murder through the use of a firearm would make him eligible for the death penalty if convicted.

Defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo said she would seek to try only the federal case and eliminate the state case because federal prosecutors indicated they would seek the death penalty.

She said the defense would seek to preclude the government from pursuing the death penalty. The judge gave her a June 27 deadline to file her argument.

Mangione is next due in federal court on Dec. 5, at which time the judge said she would set a trial date sometime in 2026.

At the end of Friday's hearing, Friedman Agnifilo said prosecutors at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office told her they had inadvertently been "eavesdropping" on one of Mangione's calls with his lawyers.

Friedman Agnifilo said they were given a recording of the jailhouse call by federal prosecutors. Gentile said this was the first he was hearing of it.

The judge demanded a letter by next Friday with an explanation.

In a court filing, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office said Friedman Agnifilo made "certain factual and legal misstatements" about the jailhouse call.

"[W]e informed you of this inadvertent occurrence involving a single paralegal and no prosecutor on Tuesday April 22, 2025, within hours of when we learned of this disclosure. No prosecutor ever learned of the contents of that call which was deleted by the paralegal upon our learning of it," wrote Joel Seidemann, who is leading the Manhattan DA's prosecution of Mangione, in a letter posted to the state docket late Friday.

Mangione is accused of stalking Thompson outside the Hilton in Midtown Manhattan and then shooting him to death on Dec. 4, 2024. Thompson was heading to an investors' conference when he was shot and killed.

The 26-year-old was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, five days later. He was initially charged in a federal complaint in connection with the murder, before a federal grand jury indicted him this month.

Hours before Mangione's arraignment in federal court, federal prosecutors submitted formal notice they intend to seek the death penalty if he's convicted, citing, in part his alleged desire "to provoke broad-based resistance to the victim's industry" by killing Thompson.

Ahead of the filing of the indictment, Attorney General Pam Bondi already signaled her intention to pursue the death penalty in the case as part of the president's push to reinstate capital punishment.

The "notice of intent to seek the death penalty" is the government's formal step to inform the court and lay out its arguments.

Federal prosecutors claimed in their new filing that Mangione deserves the death penalty because of "the impact of the victim's death upon his family, friends and co-workers" and because "he expressed intent to target an entire industry and rally political and social opposition to that industry, by engaging in an act of lethal violence."

Prosecutors also alleged that in the selection of the site and victim, the suspect made clear he sought "to amplify an ideological message, maximize the visibility and impact of the victim's murder, and to provoke broad-based resistance to the victim's industry."

Mangione's lawyers have already called the decision to seek the death penalty "barbaric" and a "political stunt" and are actively trying to stop the government from seeking the death penalty if he's convicted, arguing the Justice Department made a "political, arbitrary, capricious" breach of protocol.

He is being held in federal custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.