NEW YORK — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Friday that he had received evidence indicating Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, would not contest his extradition to New York from Pennsylvania.
At a separate press conference in Times Square, Bragg stated that while the defendant may waive, the waiver is not finalized until a court process has taken place.
We will keep moving forward in parallel directions until then, and we will be prepared whether he chooses to contest extradition or waive it.
Mangione, 26, was charged with second-degree murder, three firearms possession violations, and criminal possession of a falsified instrument in a criminal complaint filed Monday by Bragg’s office for the early-morning homicide that took place outside the Hilton Hotel in Midtown on December 4.
According to ABC, Manhattan prosecutors began presenting evidence before a grand jury on Thursday in an attempt to obtain an indictment for the well-known murder. The report was neither confirmed or discussed by the DA’s office.
Since his arrest on Monday, Mangione has been held in Pennsylvania without being granted bail. Bragg and the office of New York Governor Kathy Hochul have stated that they are working together to send a request for extradition to the office of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.
Thomas Dickey, Mangione’s lawyer, said earlier this week that he will contest his extradition to New York. Regarding Bragg’s remarks on Friday, he was unavailable for comment. According to Pennsylvania court administrators, Mangione’s next court date is December 23.
According to CCTV footage, Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two, was shot dead in the street as he was making his way to UnitedHealthcare’s annual investor conference. A five-day manhunt ensued after the suspect rode off on a bike and was reportedly on his way out of the city in forty-five minutes.
Previously, police thought Mangione had escaped the city in a bus that had been stolen from a depot close to the George Washington Bridge. The New York Daily News was informed on Friday by NYPD sources that they now believe Mangione took a train out of the city after riding a southbound A train from the depot to Penn Station. The bike he used to flee the scene is thought to have been stolen.
Mangione was caught at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, more than 200 miles away, after a patron recognized him from stills from the New York assassination video that had gone viral.
He was in possession of a 3D-printed ghost gun and silencer, as well as bullets that matched those found at the scene and bore the words “delay, deny, and defend,” which seemed to be a reference to the insurance industry’s practice of postponing claims in order to increase profits, and phony identification documents, according to Pennsylvania law enforcement and the NYPD.
In Pennsylvania, he faces charges of forgery, carrying an unregistered firearm, and giving police a phony identification document. Peter Weeks, the DA for Blair County, has stated that he will not pursue charges against Mangione until after his trial in New York.
According to the NYPD, Mangione also had a 260-word note with him when he was caught, which seemed to explain why he wanted to shoot Thompson.
He stated that despite having the most costly healthcare system globally, the United States ranked 42nd in terms of life expectancy. He claimed that because the American public has (permitted) insurers to continue abusing our nation for enormous financial gain, they have simply grown too powerful.
According to the police, Mangione wrote, “To be honest, these parasites just had it coming.”
The NYPD claimed that Mangione’s fingerprints were discovered on a KIND bar wrapper and a water bottle close to the site on Wednesday. Additionally, they claimed to be analyzing bullets discovered in a bag close to a rucksack thought to have belonged to Mangione that was discovered in Central Park.
The Ivy League alumnus comes from a prominent Baltimore family that owns a number of country clubs and nursing homes. Police said his last known address was in Hawaii.
His LinkedIn page states that he was the head counselor for a Stanford University program that taught exceptional high school students artificial intelligence, and that he received both a master’s and a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020. He was employed by TrueCar in San Francisco as a data engineer after graduating from college.
Authorities are looking into Mangione’s interactions with UnitedHealthcare for possible reasons, even though they claim he was not a client. This Monday, R.J. Martin, the founder of the Honolulu co-living facility where Mangione spent six months, told The New York Times that Mangione had a spinal misalignment. Mangione wrote about his chronic pain, which required spinal fusion surgery, on Reddit and other communities. His X cover photo seems to be an X-ray taken following the operation.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, four days prior to his arrest, an officer from the San Francisco Police Department identified Mangione in video stills from the missing person’s report and notified the FBI.
A representative from the FBI’s New York bureau who was contacted for comment on Friday acknowledged receiving the tip and directed it to the NYPD.
A citizen identified the images after law enforcement shared them widely, and the Altoona Police Department arrested the person as a result, the spokesperson said.
Healthcare CEO shooting
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