US Legal professional Normal Pam Bondi says determination is predicated on President Donald Trump’s agenda to cease crime and ‘Make America Secure Once more’.
US Legal professional Normal Pam Bondi has mentioned that she has directed prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione, the person accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
It’s the first time the Justice Division has sought to deliver the death penalty since US President Donald Trump returned to workplace in January with a marketing campaign vow to resume federal executions.
Bondi’s determination to pursue the death penalty is available in a high-profile case, reported world wide, against Mangione, who has drawn a legion of supporters vehemently opposed to what they are saying are abuses by the healthcare trade.
Thompson’s killing alarmed the company world, the place some well being insurers rapidly switched to distant work or on-line shareholder conferences. However the case additionally channelled some People’ deep frustrations with medical health insurance firms which have been accused of denying many essential care due to price.
Mangione’s writings and phrases on bullets recovered from the scene mirrored animus towards well being insurers and company America, authorities have mentioned.
Surveillance video confirmed a masked gunman taking pictures Thompson from behind. Police say the phrases “delay,” “deny” and “depose” have been scrawled on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase generally used to describe insurer techniques to keep away from paying claims.
“Luigi Mangione’s homicide of Brian Thompson – an harmless man and father of two younger youngsters – was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America,” Bondi mentioned in an announcement on Tuesday that described Thompson’s killing as “an act of political violence”.
“After cautious consideration, I’ve directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty on this case as we supply out President Trump’s agenda to cease violent crime and Make America Secure Once more,” Bondi mentioned.
Trump oversaw an unprecedented run of executions on the finish of his first time period and has been an outspoken proponent of increasing capital punishment. Bondi’s order comes weeks after she lifted a moratorium on the federal death penalty that had been imposed underneath former President Joe Biden’s administration.
In his remaining weeks in workplace, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 folks on federal death row, changing their punishments to life in jail.
Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate, is accused of gunning down Thompson on December 4 exterior a Manhattan resort the place UnitedHealthcare was about to maintain an investor convention. Thompson, who was 50 and had two youngsters in highschool, labored for many years inside UnitedHealthcare and its guardian firm.
Mangione faces separate federal and state homicide costs for the killing. The federal costs embrace homicide via using a firearm, which carries the potential of the death penalty. The state costs carry a most punishment of life in jail. Mangione has pleaded not responsible to a state indictment and has not entered a plea to the federal costs.
Prosecutors have mentioned the 2 circumstances will proceed on parallel tracks, with the state case anticipated to go to trial first. It wasn’t instantly clear if Bondi’s announcement will change the order.
Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman-Agnifilo, has mentioned she would seek to suppress a number of the proof seized throughout his arrest. She has additionally taken concern with the parallel prosecutions, accusing “warring jurisdictions” of turning Mangione right into a “human ping-pong ball”.
Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370km) west of New York Metropolis, after a five-day manhunt.
Police mentioned Mangione had with him a 9mm handgun that matched the one used within the taking pictures and different gadgets together with a pretend ID and a pocket book described by authorities as a “manifesto” wherein they are saying he expressed hostility in direction of the medical health insurance trade and rich executives.
Among the many entries within the pocket book, prosecutors mentioned, was one from August 2024 that mentioned “the goal is insurance coverage” as a result of “it checks each field” and one from October that describes an intent to “wack” an insurance coverage firm CEO.
UnitedHealthcare is the biggest well being insurer within the US, although the corporate mentioned Mangione was by no means a consumer.
After his arrest, Mangione was whisked by airplane and helicopter again to New York and walked slowly up a Manhattan pier in a extremely choreographed spectacle by a throng of officers with assault rifles and a contingent that included New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams.
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