Luigi Mangione, the Ivy League graduate charged with fatally shooting a UnitedHealthcare CEO last December on a Midtown sidewalk, faces a set of hearings beginning Monday, which will determine if the jury will see key evidence in his upcoming trial.<\/p>\n
Defense lawyers for the Maryland suspect, who is charged with murder, illegal weapons possession and forgery, hope to block prosecutors from showing the jury a notebook in which he appears to zero in on the target for the killing, plot its execution and lay out the justification for the shooting.<\/p>\n
They are hoping to argue that Pennsylvania police violated their client\u2019s rights by questioning him before informing him of his rights and searching his bag without justification.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say\u00a0Mangione staked out UnitedHealth executive Brian Thompson, 50, ahead of the insurer\u2019s Dec. 4 investor meeting at the Hilton hotel on Sixth Avenue and West 54th Street.<\/p>\n
They say he used a 9 mm ghost gun with a silencer to shoot the CEO twice \u2014 once in the back and once in the leg. \u2014 before fleeing uptown on a Citi Bike. Video surveillance footage shows a masked man approach Thompson from behind on the sidewalk and fire a gun at him. The fatal shot entered the left side of his back and pierced Thompson\u2019s liver and heart, prosecutors said in court papers. He died at the scene.<\/p>\n
Three shell casings on the sidewalk after the shooting were inscribed with the words “depose,\u201d “delay\u201d and “den,\u201d which police believe meant “deny,\u201d from a book, “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don\u2019t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shooting sparked massive public interest, with many seeing Mangione\u2019s alleged action as a protest against the overpriced and corrupt health care system.<\/p>\n
The killing set off a massive six-day manhunt as the NYPD traced the killer\u2019s journey from the crime scene to a Manhattan youth hostel where they say he stayed.<\/p>\n
The trail appeared to grow cold until a McDonald\u2019s worker in Altoona, Pennsylvania, called police with a tip that the man in his restaurant resembled the shooter.<\/p>\n
A photo of the suspect released by the NYPD showed most of the shooter\u2019s face covered by a medical mask, except his distinctive, thick, dark eyebrows and hair.<\/p>\n
Altoona police surrounded Mangione in the McDonald\u2019s and began to question him about his identity and recent travel to New York.<\/p>\n
Authorities said he showed them a fake New Jersey driver\u2019s license and denied being in the city before reversing his statements and admitting he had lied.<\/p>\n
Altoona police searched Mangione\u2019s bookbag, finding a 9 mm ghost gun and silencer, ammunition, nearly $8,000 in cash and a red notebook with his note, including a letter to federal law enforcement in which he appeared to admit to the killing, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
“I do apologize for any strife or trauma, but it had to be done,\u201d he allegedly wrote. “Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the U.S. has the #1 most expensive health care system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy, UHC is the 5th largest company in the U.S. by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but has our life expectancy? No. The reality is these mafiosi have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defense attorneys hope to suppress these and other statements, arguing that police did not have a warrant or sufficient justification to search his bag.<\/p>\n
In September, Mangione\u2019s lawyers successfully argued to drop two terrorism-related charges against him in state court.<\/p>\n
He faces life in prison if convicted of the remaining murder and weapons charges.<\/p>\n
Mangione also faces federal stalking and murder charges in\u00a0federal court in Manhattan.<\/p>\n
Attorney General Pamela Bondi has promised to seek the death penalty if he\u2019s convicted in federal court.<\/p>\n
The suppression hearings will begin on Monday morning and likely stretch into next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luigi Mangione, the Ivy League graduate charged with fatally shooting a UnitedHealthcare CEO last December on a Midtown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,3071,451,3,34905,452,453],"class_list":{"0":"post-324214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-crime","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-nyc-crime","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}