{"id":235456,"date":"2026-05-18T16:31:50","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T16:31:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/235456\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T16:31:50","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T16:31:50","slug":"luigi-mangione-trial-manhattan-judge-allows-gun-and-notebook-as-evidence-in-state-murder-case-of-alleged-midtown-assassin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/235456\/","title":{"rendered":"Luigi Mangione trial: Manhattan judge allows gun and notebook as evidence in state murder case of alleged Midtown assassin"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Manhattan Supreme Court judge<\/a> will admit the 3D-printed gun and the notebook prosecutors dubbed a manifesto that were found in Luigi Mangione<\/a>\u2019s backpack when he was arrested.<\/p>\n

The mixed ruling concludes the evidentiary hearing ahead of Mangione\u2019s state trial, in which he is charged with the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson<\/a> outside the New York Midtown Hilton in Manhattan. The outcome dealt a blow to Mangione\u2019s defense, which had sought to exclude all the contents of the backpack that police recovered during his arrest.<\/p>\n

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro did find that Pennsylvania officers violated Mangione\u2019s rights in searching him at the Altoona McDonald\u2019s where they arrested him<\/a>, but that infraction will not affect two of the most critical pieces of evidence that police uncovered when they searched him in the station.<\/p>\n

\u201cItems found in the backpack at the McDonald\u2019s should be suppressed,\u201d Carro said. \u201cItems recovered at the station should not be suppressed.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

That means the items that Altoona police found when they searched Mangione\u2019s backpack at the McDonald\u2019s must not be considered at trial \u2014 including the magazine, cellphone, passport, wallet and computer chip. However, the gun, red notebook and silencer, which were recovered after officers took Mangione and his belongings back to the police station, are fair game.<\/p>\n

\"LuigiLuigi Mangione appears at an evidence suppression hearing at the Manhattan Supreme Court on May 18, 2026.REUTERS\/Jeenah Moon\/Pool<\/p>\n

Mangione was arrested on Dec. 9, 2024, in Altoona in the midst of a massive manhunt for the person who assassinated Thompson outside of a Midtown corporate convention five days prior.<\/p>\n

In December, prosecutors and defense attorneys scrutinized key evidence against Mangione during a multiday hearing.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Carro validated Mangione\u2019s contention that the search of his belongings in the McDonald\u2019s was a violation of search and seizure law that only allows officers to search bags within the defendant\u2019s \u201cimmediate control\u201d in order to prevent the destruction of evidence or access to a weapon.<\/p>\n

During the hearings, members of the Altoona Police Department said they were compelled to search the backpack to make sure it didn\u2019t contain any explosives, but they also said it was routine to search all bags in a defendant\u2019s possession when they are arrested. Carro did not find the justification persuasive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe officers\u2019 actions were inconsistent with merely performing a safety search. The area where the police searched the backpack was open to the public and to employees, both of whom passed by the area on their way to the bathrooms, and in the case of employees, to gain access to storage closets,\u201d he wrote in his decision.<\/p>\n

\"LuigiLuigi Mangione converses with his legal team during a suppression hearing at the Manhattan Supreme Court on May 18, 2026.REUTERS\/Jeenah Moon\/pool<\/p>\n

But once the officers took Mangione back to the station, Carro concluded that the inventory search that uncovered a loaded gun and a notebook was valid. Prosecutors in Mangione\u2019s federal trial, which is scheduled to come after the state trial, have said Mangione wrote about his intent to \u201cwack\u201d the CEO of the insurance company at its investor conference.<\/p>\n

The state trial is set to begin starting in September.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look forward to presenting our case at trial on Sept. 8,\u201d said a spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney\u2019s office. Mangione is also facing a separate federal trial<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Manhattan Supreme Court judge will admit the 3D-printed gun and the notebook prosecutors dubbed a manifesto that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-235456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}