The man arrested in connection with the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson hails from a family with ties to the health care industry.
Luigi Mangione, 26, was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday—five days after Thompson, 50, was shot dead by a masked gunman as he walked alone to his company’s annual investor conference at the New York Hilton in midtown Manhattan.
In Pennsylvania, where he remained jailed, Luigi Mangione was initially charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to the police. By Monday evening, prosecutors in Manhattan had added a murder charge, and he is expected to be extradited to New York.
Soon after the shooting, police described the event as a targeted attack. They said the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on ammunition found near Thompson’s body—words that point to a phrase used to criticize the insurance industry.
Joseph Kenny, the New York Police Department’s chief of detectives, said Luigi Mangione carried a three-page, handwritten note that showed “ill will toward corporate America.”
Luigi Mangione is a scion of a wealthy real estate family from Maryland. His grandfather Nicholas Mangione, who died in 2008, was a self-made multimillionaire real estate developer and philanthropist.
The family patriarch began working at the age of 11 after the death of his father, enlisted in the Navy and worked as a contractor for two decades before building and owning nursing homes and hospitals—including Harford County’s Fallston General Hospital, which has since closed, the Baltimore Banner reported.
Nicholas Mangione and his wife, Mary Mangione, also founded a nursing home and assisted-living company called Lorien Health Services that operates nine community-focused facilities in Maryland.
According to Lorien’s website, it was “founded in 1977 by the same family that continues to lead the company today.”
The Mangione family has a long history of supporting hospitals in the Baltimore area and has a particularly strong connection to the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, where all 37 of the elder Mangione’s grandchildren—including Luigi Mangione—were born.
The next generation is continuing that tradition, according to a 2022 blog post on the hospital’s website that features a photo of the extended family.
“It becomes subconscious. Delivering at GBMC is not even a thought,” Victoria Smith, one of Nicholas Mangione’s grandchildren, said in the post.
The family has contributed more than $1 million to the hospital over the years, and its high-risk obstetrics unit bears the Mangione name, the Banner reported.
In addition to GBMC, the Mangione Family Foundation has supported the Kennedy Krieger Institute, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center. The family’s foundation previously held stocks in MetLife, an insurer in New York that offers health care policies, according to financial documents from the 2018 fiscal year.
After Luigi Mangione’s arrest on Monday, Maryland lawmaker Nino Mangione, his cousin, posted a statement from the family on social media.
“Unfortunately, we cannot comment on news reports regarding Luigi Mangione. We only know what we have read in the media,” the family said.
The statement continued: “Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest. We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved. We are devastated by this news.”
The post Luigi Mangione’s Family Ties to Health Care Industry Revealed appeared first on Newsweek.
