Luigi Mangione pleaded not guilty Friday in New York federal court to the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Mangione faces a possible death sentence in the case if he is convicted in the federal case of murdering Thompson, who was gunned down on a Manhattan street in December.
The 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate is separately charged in New York state court with the slaying.
Mangione is accused of fatally shooting Thompson on Dec. 4 as the CEO was walking into the Hilton Hotel in midtown. UnitedHealth Group, the parent of Thompson’s health insurance giant, was hosting an event for investors at the hotel that day.
Mangione was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
He is charged U.S. District Court in Manhattan with murder through use of a firearm, two counts of stalking, and a firearms offence.
Mangione appeared there Friday before Judge Margaret Garnett to enter his plea.
The hearing occurred a day after the Justice Department formally notified Garnett that it would seek the death penalty in the case, arguing that Thompson’s killing was ideologically motivated by Mangione’s anger toward the health insurance industry.
In a court filing Thursday, prosecutors told Garnett there were several factors to warrant imposing a death sentence in the case, including the allegation that Mangione “intentionally killed” Thompson, and “that the killing required “substantial planning and premeditation.”
“Mangione elected to murder Thompson under these circumstances to amplify an ideological
message, maximize the visibility and impact of the victim’s murder, and to provoke broad-based resistance to the victim’s industry,” the filing said.
“Mangione presents a future danger because he expressed intent to target an entire industry, and rally political and social opposition to that industry, by engaging in an act of lethal violence; and he took steps to evade law enforcement, flee New York City immediately after the murder, and cross state lines while armed with a privately manufactured firearm and silencer.”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on April 1 first revealed that the Justice Department wanted to have Mangione executed if he is convicted.
“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 that day.
Mangione’s lawyers in an April 11 court filing asked Judge Garnett to block prosecutors from seeking the death penalty, arguing that Bondi had violated the defendant’s rights to due process and that the attorney general had prejudiced the pool of potential jurors with her public statement.
On Friday, Garnett warned lawyers in the case to refrain from “public commentary that could impede Mangione’s right to a fair trial.
“I’m specifically directing the government to convey my directive to Mr. Clayton and request that he convey the same to Attorney General Bondi and her associates at main Justice,” Garnett said. Jay Clayton is the interim Manhattan U.S. Attorney, and “main Justice” is a reference to the Justice Department and its headquarters in Washington, D.C.