The 26-year-old man charged in last week's killing of UnitedHealthcare's CEO appeared in a Pennsylvania courtroom Tuesday, where he was denied bail and his lawyer said he'd fight extradition to New York City, where the attack happened.
Luigi Nicholas Mangione was arrested Monday in the Dec. 4 attack on Brian Thompson after police say a worker at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, alerted them to a customer who resembled the suspected gunman. When arrested, Mangione had on him a gun that investigators believe was used in the attack and writings expressing anger at corporate America, police said.
As Mangione was led into the Hollidaysburg courthouse Tuesday, he struggled with officers and shouted something that was partly unintelligible but referred to an “insult to the intelligence of the American people.” He left hours later without saying anything and was driven away.
Mangione is being held on Pennsylvania charges of possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police. Manhattan prosecutors have charged him with five counts, including murder, criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a forged instrument.
Wearing an orange jumpsuit, Mangione mostly stared straight ahead during the hearing, occasionally consulting papers, rocking in his chair, or looking back at the gallery. At one point, he began to speak to respond to the court discussion but was quieted by his lawyer.
Judge David Consiglio denied bail to Mangione, whose attorney, Thomas Dickey, told the court that his client did not agree to extradition and wants a hearing on the matter.
Blair County (Pennsylvania) District Attorney Peter Weeks said that although Mangione will create “extra hoops” for law enforcement to jump through by fighting extradition, it won’t be a substantial barrier to sending him to New York.
In addition to a three-page, handwritten document that suggests he harbored "ill will toward corporate America," NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Monday that Mangione also had a ghost gun, a type of weapon that can be assembled at home and is difficult to trace.
Officers questioned Mangione, who was acting suspiciously and carrying multiple fraudulent IDs, as well as a U.S. passport, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. Officers also found a sound suppressor, or silencer, “consistent with the weapon used in the murder,” she said.
He had clothing and a mask similar to those worn by the shooter and a fraudulent New Jersey ID matching one the suspect used to check into a New York City hostel before the shooting, the commissioner said.
Mangione, who comes from a prominent Maryland family, was valedictorian of his elite Baltimore prep school and had degrees from one of the nation's top private universities. He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science in 2020 from the University of Pennsylvania.
Mangione's grandfather Nick Mangione, who died in 2008, was a successful real estate developer. One of his best-known projects was Turf Valley Resort, a sprawling luxury retreat and conference center outside Baltimore that he purchased in 1978. One of Luigi Mangione’s cousins is Republican Maryland state legislator Nino Mangione, a spokesman for the lawmaker’s office confirmed.
From January to June 2022, Mangione lived at Surfbreak, a “co-living” space at the edge of touristy Waikiki in Honolulu. Josiah Ryan, a spokesperson for owner and founder R.J. Martin, said that Martin had learned that Mangione had severe back pain from childhood that interfered with many aspects of his life.
Friends in Hawaii widely considered Mangione a “great guy,” and pictures on his social media accounts show a fit and smiling young man on beaches and at parties.
Mangione likely was motivated by his anger at what he called “parasitic” health insurance companies and a disdain for corporate greed, according to a law enforcement bulletin obtained by The Associated Press. He wrote that the U.S. has the most expensive healthcare system in the world and that the profits of major corporations continue to rise while “our life expectancy” does not, according to the bulletin, based on a review of the suspect’s handwritten notes and social media posts.
Police said the person who killed Thompson left a hostel on Manhattan's Upper West Side at 5:41 a.m. last Wednesday.
Eleven minutes later, he was seen on surveillance video walking back and forth in front of the New York Hilton Midtown, wearing a distinctive backpack.
At 6:44 a.m., he shot Thompson at a side entrance to the hotel, fled on foot, then climbed aboard a bicycle and within four minutes had entered Central Park, according to police.
Another security camera recorded the gunman leaving the park near the American Museum of Natural History at 6:56 a.m. still on the bicycle but without the backpack, police said.
After getting in a taxi, he headed north to a bus terminal near the George Washington Bridge, arriving at around 7:30 a.m.
From there, the trail of video evidence runs cold. Police have not located video of the suspect exiting the building, leading them to believe he likely took a bus out of town. Police said they are still investigating the path the suspect took to Pennsylvania.
“This just happened this morning," Kenny said. "We’ll be working, backtracking his steps from New York to Altoona, Pennsylvania,” Kenny said.
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Associated Press reporters Jamie Stengle, Lea Skene, Matt O'Brien, Sean Murphy and Cedar Attanasio contributed to this report.
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