A top federal prosecutor told a Manhattan judge on Wednesday that recent social media posts from two Trump Justice Department officials that called Luigi Mangione guilty of killing a health insurance executive had not violated the judge’s order to avoid commenting publicly on the case.
The prosecutor, Sean S. Buckley, also argued that Mr. Mangione’s lawyers, who had complained about the posts, had not identified any way they had prejudiced Mr. Mangione’s case or shown that future potential jurors had been exposed to or affected by the statements.
The trial had not yet even been scheduled, Mr. Buckley said.
The prosecutor’s comments were submitted in a legal filing to the judge, Margaret Garnett of Federal District Court, who two weeks ago demanded that the government explain why Justice Department officials were publicly expressing views on Mr. Mangione’s guilt in violation of an order she had issued in April.
In that order, she warned the parties to the case to refrain from making comments that could affect Mr. Mangione’s ability to receive a fair trial and the court’s ability to select an impartial jury.
Mr. Mangione is accused of killing Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, who was gunned down minutes before an investors’ meeting at a Midtown Manhattan hotel on Dec. 4. When Mr. Mangione was captured five days later, the authorities said he had a manifesto decrying America’s “parasitic” insurance industry and its system of for-profit health care.
Last month, a state judge in New York dismissed terrorism charges against Mr. Mangione, which included a count that could have put him in prison for the rest of his life. He still faces a murder charge, to which he has pleaded not guilty. In the parallel federal case, he has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge that carries a potential penalty of death.
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The post Posts Calling Mangione Guilty Did No Harm, Top U.S. Prosecutor Argues appeared first on New York Times.
