U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Tuesday she has directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione, the man accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel on Dec. 4.
Mangione, 26, faces separate federal and state murder charges for the killing. The federal charges include a charge of murder through use of a firearm, which carries the possibility of the death penalty.
“Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson — an innocent man and father of two young children — was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America,” Bondi said in a statement. “After careful consideration, I have directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case as we carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again.”
A message seeking comment on Bondi’s announcement was left for a spokesperson for Mangione’s lawyers.
Last week, a judge cleared the way for Mangione to get a laptop behind bars — if his jailers agree — so he can examine documents and other material in the UnitedHealthcare CEO murder case.
New York state Judge Gregory Carro wrote that he had “no objection” to Mangione’s request for the device, which would be configured to allow him only to review case materials. But Carro noted that it’s ultimately up to federal authorities who oversee the lockup where Mangione is awaiting trial.
Mangione, a prep school and Ivy League graduate whose family had reported him missing, has pleaded not guilty to New York charges that include murder as an act of terrorism. Also facing a federal murder charge, he is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal jail in Brooklyn.
He hasn’t entered a plea in the federal case.
Thompson was ambushed on Dec. 4 while walking to a Manhattan hotel where the company was holding an investor conference.
Mangione’s lawyers asked Monday that he get a laptop to view a vast amount of documents, video and other items that prosecutors have gathered and turned over to the defense so far.
Mangione’s attorneys said the material is so voluminous that he can’t reasonably view it on the lockup’s shared computers for inmates, nor go over it all during visiting hours with his attorneys, so he needs a dedicated laptop to scrutinize the material and help prepare his defense.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the rare murder-as-an-act-of-terrorism case, objected to the laptop request. Prosecutors argued, among other things, that Mangione’s lawyers could show him the key case material.
During the back-and-forth over the laptop, prosecutors disclosed that someone slipped a handwritten, heart-shaped note of encouragement into socks that were intended for Mangione to wear to court last month. A court officer intercepted the message before the footgear got to Mangione.
His lawyers said they were unaware of the note when they brought him the clothes.
It’s not clear who wrote the note or hid it in the socks.
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