NEW YORK — Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty Friday to federal stalking charges in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and admitted that he shot the executive.
Mangione, 28, read a statement in court in which he described targeting Thompson outside an investor conference in late 2024.
Mangione had previously said he was not guilty of the state and federal charges against him in connection with Thompson’s killing. He is scheduled to stand trial next month on state murder charges.
The stalking charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Friday’s guilty plea in the federal case will complicate Mangione’s state trial on murder and weapons charges, set to start Sept. 8. Under New York’s double-jeopardy statute, state prosecutors are mostly restricted from pursuing cases if a defendant has already been convicted of a similar offense.
State prosecutors appeared to acknowledge that possibility in a letter last month to the judge in their case.
There is a “very good chance that double jeopardy will apply with respect to his state case,” said Anna Cominsky, a professor at New York Law School.
The shooting of a prominent corporate executive in broad daylight, combined with the tale of his alleged killer — who prosecutors said railed against the “greed fueled” health insurance industry — has made the case a focus of intense public interest.
Some view Mangione as a symbol of their anger with health insurance providers. Supporters wearing “Free Luigi” T-shirts have attended hearings in his case, and his story has generated memes, merchandise, even a musical.
Mangione’s alleged evolution from Ivy League graduate to assassin baffled many who knew him. The scion of a prominent Baltimore family, Mangione was the valedictorian at his all-boys private high school and studied computer science at the University of Pennsylvania.
He suffered from years of painful back problems, friends said, and his behavior became increasingly disturbing. He expressed admiration for the writings of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, in a public post and dropped out of contact with his family months before Thompson’s killing.
On Dec. 4, 2024, Thompson was shot from behind by a man wielding a pistol, police said, as Thompson walked toward a Hilton hotel in Manhattan.
The gunman vanished into Central Park, sparking an intense manhunt that ended five days later when customers at a McDonald’s hundreds of miles away recognized the suspect after seeing his face on the news. Shortly afterward, Mangione was arrested at the restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
At Mangione’s murder trial, state prosecutors planned to introduce items found in his backpack to jurors. They include a 3D printed pistol that matched the bullets fired at Thompson, authorities said, as well as several pages of handwritten notes. In an entry dated six weeks before Thompson’s killing, Mangione described his intent to “wack” an insurance company executive, the federal complaint states.
Lawyers for Mangione in June said they planned to pursue a psychiatric defense, arguing that he was suffering from extreme emotional disturbance at the time of the killing, but a day later backed away from the claim.
Earlier this year, a federal judge effectively barred the Justice Department from pursuing a death-penalty case. State-level terrorism charges against Mangione were also dismissed.
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