Mangione alludes to back pain in explaining his actions<\/p>\n
Surveillance video of the ambush showed\u00a0a masked gunman<\/a>\u00a0shooting Thompson, 50, from behind. Police say\u00a0\u201cdelay,\u201d \u201cdeny\u201d and \u201cdepose\u201d<\/a>\u00a0were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.\n<\/p>\n That detail \u2014 and revelations that Mangione\u2019s private writings lambasted health insurers as greedy, according to authorities \u2014 made the case a fulcrum for debate about the industry and made Mangione a\u00a0cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre<\/a>\u00a0for some of its critics.\n<\/p>\n A University of Pennsylvania graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, Mangione told the court Friday that he pursued Thompson \u201cafter years of enduring severe pain from a broken back and navigating the obstacles of the health insurance system.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Friedman Agnifilo later said her client \u201cbelieved that the system had failed him and destroyed his life.\u201d\n <\/p>\n Authorities say Mangione\u2019s grievances are no excuse for killing<\/p>\n Mangione\u00a0never was a UnitedHealthcare customer<\/a>, according to police and the company.\n<\/p>\n \u201cTo those who idolize Luigi Mangione, I say this. Violence is not a cause. Murder is not a message. And a killer is certainly not a hero,\u201d New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said outside court Friday.\n<\/p>\n U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald, whose office handled the federal case, added: \u201cThere can be no celebrity in assassination.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Thompson led one of the United States\u2019 largest health insurers, but he\u00a0wasn\u2019t well known outside the industry<\/a>. Trained as an accountant, he had worked at parent company UnitedHealth Group Inc. for 20 years and became CEO of its insurance arm, UnitedHealthcare, in 2021.\n<\/p>\n Thompson\u2019s violent death \u201cdevastated everyone who knew and loved him,\u201d the company said in a statement Friday, thanking law enforcement for bringing him to justice.\n<\/p>\n Now Mangione is pressing to end the state case<\/p>\n But his federal guilty plea does give him leverage to argue for closing out the New York state prosecution, which carries the potential for a separate long sentence.\n<\/p>\n The state\u2019s double jeopardy protections can kick in if a prior prosecution ends in a guilty plea.\n<\/p>\n Mangione\u2019s cases involve different charges arising from the same course of conduct. The Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office, which is handling the state prosecution, said Friday that it remains committed to its case and would contest the defense\u2019s efforts to shut it down.\n<\/p>\n In June, Mangione\u2019s lawyers said they would pursue a psychiatric defense in the state case but\u00a0reversed course<\/a>\u00a0a day later. The defense, involving claims that he was suffering from extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the killing, isn\u2019t allowed in federal court.\n<\/p>\n In the federal case, Garnett had delivered some setbacks to the defense, including ruling in January that prosecutors could use items collected from Mangione\u2019s backpack during his arrest as evidence against him. They included a 3D-printed pistol that investigators said matched the one used to kill Thompson and\u00a0a notebook<\/a>\u00a0in which authorities say Mangione described his intent to kill an insurance executive.\n<\/p>\n Mangione\u00a0was arrested five days after the shooting<\/a>, when he was spotted at a McDonald\u2019s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. It\u2019s about 230 miles (370 kilometers) west of Manhattan. In the days after the shooting, police had\u00a0released various images<\/a>\u00a0of the suspected shooter, including one showing his face as he checked into a hostel.\n<\/p>\n ___\n<\/p>\n Associated Press writers Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mangione alludes to back pain in explaining his actions Surveillance video of the ambush showed\u00a0a masked gunman\u00a0shooting Thompson,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-321498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321498","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=321498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}