Luigi Mangione, who is accused of gunning down a top insurance company executive on a New York City street, has inspired others to embrace violence, including the gunman behind last month’s deadly attack on the NFL headquarters in Manhattan, federal prosecutors contend in a new court filing.
Mangione, the prosecutors argued in Wednesday’s filing, poses a threat to the public because he is actively seeking to influence others to follow in his footsteps.
“Simply put, the defendant hoped to normalize the use of violence to achieve ideological or political objectives,” they said in the document. “Since the murder, certain quarters of the public — who openly identify as acolytes of the defendant — have increasingly begun to view violence as an acceptable, or even necessary, substitute for reasoned political disagreement.”
Mangione, 27, is awaiting trial, charged in the Dec. 4, 2024, ambush killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Arrested in Pennsylvania five days after the fatal shooting, Mangione has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of murder, two counts of stalking and a firearms offense for allegedly using a silencer. He also faces state murder charges.
But since his arrest, Mangione has “openly cultivated supporters” by setting up a website where he directly addresses them and catalogues the supportive letters he has received while locked up in the Brooklyn federal prison, the prosecutors said.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in April that the government would seek the death penalty against Mangione for “an act of political violence” and a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”
The new filing by federal prosecutors is an attempt to counter a defense motion for more information on what the government intends to offer as evidence that Mangione should be put to death for a killing that has made him a folk hero to some members of the public.
In May, Mangione’s legal defense fund surpassed $1 million in donations from more than 28,000 people, many of whom are angry with the nation’s for-profit medical system.
To buttress their argument that Mangione was inspiring more mayhem, prosecutors in a footnote cited the July 28 attack on pro football’s Park Avenue headquarters by a gunman named Shane Tamura, who fatally shot an off-duty New York City police officer, a Blackstone executive and two other people, before killing himself.
“Like Mangione, Tamura left behind a piece of evidence for investigators to find, blaming the NFL and football for causing chronic traumatic encephalopathy,” the prosecutors wrote, referring to the brain disease often caused by concussions. “Almost immediately, members of the public sympathetic to the defendant touted Tamura’s actions as a laudable continuation of the defendant’s philosophy.”
Mangione laid out his plans against the “deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel” in a red notebook that investigators found after his arrest, New York state prosecutors alleged in a June court filing.
The lawyer who represents Mangione in the federal case did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
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