Luigi Mangione pleaded not guilty to all charges Friday in the federal case brought against him alleging he killed United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Mangione, who has attracted a significant following, denied murder through the use of a firearm, another gun offense and two counts of stalking.
Military whistleblower Chelsea Manning again showed up to support the alleged murderer in Manhattan Federal Court.
It was the second time Manning – who spent seven years behind bars for passing secrets to WikiLeaks – has been at court to see the man accused of shooting Thompson on a Manhattan street.
Mangione walked into court in leg shackles with his hands cuffed behind his back.
He was not wearing the loafers he wore at his previous state court hearing – he wore them without socks and his preppy sweater.
This time he was wearing dark socks, prison issue sneakers and a tan colored prison-issued top and pants.
Young women in the audience craned their necks to see him as his hands were freed and he sat down at a table with his lawyers, smiling as his attorney made a comment to him.
Federal prosecutors officially declared their intent to seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione hours before he appeared in court
Chelsea Manning wore a gray suit and pink tie when she joined the line for Mangione’s hearing on Friday
The stress of waiting for the hearing got too much for some in the crowd
Judge Margaret Garnett asked Mangione to stand and asked him if he had read the indictment.
He said: ‘I have’. Mangione waived the public reading of the indictment and was asked to enter his plea. He said: ‘Not guilty’.
Prosecutors said they have around one terabyte of data including Mangione’s iCloud account and information from his social media accounts.
The judge ordered prosecutors to hand it all over within a week.
Prosecutor Dominic Gentile said that he understood that the state trial would be going first, followed by the federal trial.
But Mangione’s lawyer Karen said that they would now be opposing the ‘handshake’ deal with the ‘prior administration’ – apparently referring to the Biden administration – whereby the state case was first.
She said that because the death penalty was now on the table, she would be requesting the federal case go first.
The judge said that both sides had to file motions as to whether prosecutors should be precluded from seeking the death penalty.
Security cameras caught the man who killed Thompson in action. Cops say that man is Luigi Mangione but his supporters disagree
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down outside a New York City hotel on December 4, 2024
Manning, 37, was one of several supporters who turned up at Manhattan Federal court for the latest hearing for Mangione, who now faces the death penalty if found guilty.
The fans claim Donald Trump is only seeking Mangione’s execution because the president needs a ‘fall guy’.
Speaking outside court before his latest appearance before a judge, Mangione’s supporters said that Trump was targeting him even though there was nothing ‘solid’ against him.
They defended Mangione, who is accused of shooting UnitedHealthcare chief executive Thompson, and said that he had ‘great values’ and that health insurance is a ‘right’.
Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate, was due to appear at the federal court in Manhattan to enter a plea to murder through the use of a firearm, firearms offense and two counts of stalking.
The allegation of murder with a firearm makes Mangione eligible for the death penalty, if he is convicted.
The hearing was the first since Attorney General Pam Bondi – with the support of Trump – said the Justice Department will ask for a penalty of death .
Trump has called the December shooting a ‘cold-blooded, horrible killing’ but Mangione’s lawyers have called top level administration officials’ comments a breach of protocol and are demanding the possibility of the ultimate penalty be removed from the case.
Around 20 Mangione supporters stood outside the courthouse in downtown Manhattan hours before the hearing hoping to get a seat.
Many of them were masked – an apparent tribute to Mangione – and declined to comment.
But Sandra Minestro, 33, said that she was there to show her support because she thought that ‘healthcare is a right’.
‘It’s not right that people don’t have the money to pay for health insurance’, she said.
Asked if she was there to support Mangione or for healthcare reform, she said: ‘A bit of both.’
Minestro had a sign that said: ‘Lives over profit’ and ‘Free Luigi’ with a cartoon of Luigi from the Mario Bros. video games.
Manning, a former Army private, was among them. When she appeared at a Mangione hearing in February she said she was there to exercise her sixth amendment rights to view court proceedings.
April Cheree, 49, said she wanted to make sure Mangione’s ‘rights weren’t being violated’.
She said she got the Covid-19 vaccine but that it had caused her problems with her employers – she is currently between jobs.
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Thursday that the government would seek Mangione’s execution if he is found guilty of murdering Thompson
‘I do understand his unhappiness, his disgruntlement because I’m also on a wait, I’m still waiting for return calls and waiting for return (medical) services’, she said.
‘We all feel that. I understand why he’s unhappy and fighting for someone to hear him’.
Cheree said that she was impressed with Mangione going to Penn State and being valedictorian of his high school class.
‘I haven’t found anything solid in reference to what they’re saying to make him a criminal’, she said.
‘He does have really great values proper to the (allegations), a really great family’.
Trump was seeking the death penalty because Mangione ‘has a really strong population following him’.
A van protesting the government’s intention to execute Mangione if he is found guilty drove through the streets of lower Manhattan
The truck showed video of Mangione being led into court for an earlier appearance under intense security
Artist Scott LoBaido’s turned up outside court with a graphic protest at the government’s decision to seek the death penalty
Cheree said: ‘They have to find the guy with the perfect stigma. It’s not because he’s the worst guy, he’s the top guy. He’s got the right image. In most cases when they have a fall guy, he fits perfectly. They want us to view him that way and place this disposition on him’.
Prosecutors claim that Mangione shot dead Thompson, 50, a father-of-two, outside a Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan on December 4 last year.
He allegedly used a ‘ghost gun’ and wrote ‘Deny. Depose. Delay’ on the bullets in a sign of his anger at the healthcare system which reportedly sprang from his long term back problems.
Mangione allegedly fled New York and was arrested days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, 200 miles away.
Police allegedly found a notebook in his backpack in which he wrote that killing Thompson was ‘targeted, precise, and doesn’t risk innocents’.
Police believe Mangione saw the execution as a ‘symbolic takedown’ and that he saw himself as a ‘hero’.
Mangione also faces 11 counts in a state court in New York – the trial there will take place first – including murder in the first degree and murder in the second degree.
The murder charges state that he killed Thompson ‘in furtherance of an act of terrorism’ and as a ‘crime of terrorism’.
Additionally, Mangione faces gun charges in Pennsylvania.
He has denied all the allegations.
