Suspect charged with killing UnitedHealthcare’s CEO as an act of terrorism
NEW YORK– The man accused of murder CEO of United Healthcare has been charged with murder as an act of terrorism, prosecutors said Tuesday as they tried to bring him to a New York court from a Pennsylvania prison.
Luigi Mangione was already charged with murder in the December 4 slaying Brian Thompsonbut the terror accusation is new.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Thompson’s death on a downtown Manhattan street was “a murder designed to incite terror. And we’ve seen that reaction.”
Mangione’s New York attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, declined to comment.
Thompson, 50, was shot as he walked to a hotel where Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare — the nation’s largest medical insurer — was holding an investor conference.
The murder caused a fiery outburst resentment toward American health insurersas Americans traded stories online and elsewhere about being denied coverage, left in the dark because doctors and insurers disagreed, and left with significant bills.
The shooting too rattling C-suiteswhen “wanted” posters with the names and faces of other health care officials appeared on the streets of New York and some social media users praised Mangione’s act as revenge.
New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Tuesday that “any attempt to rationalize this is despicable, reckless and insulting to our deeply held principles of justice.”
A New York law was passed after the September 11 attacks allows prosecutors to charge crimes as acts of terrorism when they are “intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policies of a governmental unit through intimidation or coercion, and influence the conduct of a governmental unit through murder, assassination or kidnapping.”
Prosecutors have applied the statute to a variety of contexts. Some concerned international extremism, but the law was first used against a Bronx gang member after a hail of gunfire killed a 10-year-old girl and paralyzed a man outside a baptism in 2002. The state’s highest court later said the conduct did not amount to terrorismand a new trial led to convictions on other charges.
Thompson’s killing, Bragg noted, happened early on a workday in an area frequented by commuters, business people and tourists.
“This was a frightening, well-planned, targeted killing designed to cause shock, attention and intimidation,” the prosecutor said.
After days of intense police investigations and publicity, Mangione was spotted at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on December 9 and arrested. New York police officials have said Mangione had with him the gun used to kill Thompson, a passport and several fake IDs, including one that the suspected shooter presented to check into a New York hostel.
The 26-year-old was charged with weapons and forgery in Pennsylvania and was held without bail. His Pennsylvania attorney has questioned the evidence for the forgery charge and the legal basis for the firearms charge. The lawyer also said Mangione would fight extradition to New York.
Mangione has two court hearings scheduled for Thursday in Pennsylvania, including an extradition hearing, Bragg noted.
Hours after his arrest, the Manhattan district attorney’s office filed paperwork charging him with murder and other crimes. The indictment builds on that paperwork.
The researchers’ working theory is that Mangione, an Ivy League computer science student from a prominent Maryland family, was propelled by anger about the U.S. health care system. A law enforcement bulletin obtained by The Associated Press last week said he had a handwritten letter with him at the time of his arrest in which he called health insurers “parasitic” and complained about corporate greed.
Mangione repeatedly posted on social media about how spinal surgery last year had alleviated his chronic back pain, and encouraged people with similar conditions to stand up for themselves when they were told to just live with it.
In a post on Reddit in late April, he advised someone with a back problem to seek additional opinions from surgeons and, if necessary, say that the pain made it impossible to work.
“We live in a capitalist society,” Mangione wrote. “I have noticed that the medical industry responds to these key words with much more urgency than you describing excruciating pain and its impact on your quality of life.”
That was him never a UnitedHealthcare customerthe insurer said.
Mangione has apparently cut himself off from his family and close friends in recent months. His family reported him missing in San Francisco in November.
After San Francisco authorities received a tip from their counterparts in New York, investigators spoke with Mangione’s mother in San Francisco late on December 7. In that interview, “she said it was something she could see him doing,” New York Police Department Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Tuesday.
Before investigators could follow up on that lead, Mangione was arrested, Kenny said.
Mangione’s family members said in a statement that they were “shocked and devastated” by his arrest.
Thompson, who grew up on a farm in Iowa, trained as an accountant. A married father of two high school students, he worked for 20 years at the giant UnitedHealth Group and became CEO of the insurance arm in 2021.
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Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak contributed.