Luigi Mangione’s Lawyers Ask Judge To Dismiss Federal Charges In Assassination Of UnitedHealthcare CEO

Lawyers for accused assassin Luigi Mangione asked a Manhattan federal judge Saturday to throw out some of his criminal charges - including the lone charge that could put him on death row in the December assassination of UnitedHealthcare chief Brian Thompson outside a Midtown hotel, court papers say.

The defense also wants Mangione’s statements to cops and his backpack with a gun and ammo kept out of trial, arguing he wasn’t read his rights and that officers searched the bag without a warrant after collaring him days later, according to the filing.

Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to state and federal raps in the Dec. 4 killing, which stunned Wall Street and sent corporate security teams scrambling. Thompson was gunned down as he arrived for his company’s annual investor conference, a murder that triggered a multistate manhunt. The suspected shooter ditched the scene on a bicycle to Central Park, then hopped a taxi to a bus depot, investigators say. He was grabbed five days later after a McDonald’s tip in Altoona, Pa., roughly 233 miles from Manhattan, and has been held without bail since.

In a minute-by-minute takedown narrative, defense attorneys paint Mangione as cooperative when two “fully armed” officers approached him in the fast-food joint, saying a caller had flagged him as “suspicious.” He allegedly handed over a New Jersey driver’s license in someone else’s name before cops told him to stand up, hands on his head for a frisk. One officer then stepped outside to summon backup, telling a colleague he was “100 percent” sure they had their guy. Nearly a half-dozen more officers swarmed the restaurant within minutes, according to the filing—before, the defense says, any Miranda warning or warrant.

The high-stakes legal fight centers on a federal firearms murder statute, the only count that makes capital punishment possible in a state where New York law doesn’t apply the death penalty. The defense says prosecutors haven’t identified the requisite “crime of violence” to pair with the gun charge and argues the alleged predicate—stalking—isn’t one.

Last month, Mangione’s team also moved to strike the death penalty from the case after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi publicly ordered prosecutors to seek it, calling the slaying a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.” The defense says those comments taint the process.

The shocking hit ignited a firestorm against big insurers online. At the crime scene, investigators found ammo scrawled with “delay,” “deny,” and “depose,” a grim echo of phrases blasted by industry critics.

Next up: Treasury-sized legal trench warfare. Prosecutors will defend their charging decisions and the cops’ actions; the defense will press to gut the capital count and suppress key evidence. The judge’s rulings could decide whether this is a straight murder case—or a potential death-penalty showdown.