Luigi Nicholas Mangione

The backstory

The victim

Brian Thompson, 50, was chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, the insurance division of UnitedHealth Group.⁸ He was a father of two.⁹ He was in Manhattan for his company’s annual investor conference, which he was to host at a midtown hotel.⁹⁸

What prosecutors allege

The account in this section comes from the state indictment announcement and the federal complaint. In the state case these are allegations only, and Mangione is presumed innocent of the state charges.³²

According to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, Mangione arrived at the Port Authority bus terminal on Nov. 24, 2024, and stayed at a Manhattan hostel under a fake New Jersey identification, extending his stay several times.³ Federal prosecutors allege he scouted the area around Thompson’s hotel and the conference venue during that period.²

The district attorney’s office alleges that early on Dec. 4, 2024, Mangione traveled to midtown by e-bike and waited across the street from the Hilton hotel.³ At about 6:45 a.m., prosecutors allege, he approached Thompson from behind with a 9mm handgun made with 3D-printed parts and fitted with a silencer, and shot him once in the back and once in the leg.³ The federal complaint alleges the shooter stood between two parked cars near West 54th Street and Sixth Avenue and then fled north through Central Park.² Thompson was taken to Mount Sinai hospital and pronounced dead at 7:12 a.m.³

The district attorney’s office alleges that shell casings found at the scene bore the words “DENY” and “DEPOSE,” and that a bullet bore the word “DELAY.”³ In 2025, federal prosecutors cited notebook entries they attribute to Mangione, including an August 2024 entry reading “the target is insurance.”¹⁷

The arrest

On Dec. 9, 2024, Mangione was arrested at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after an employee recognized him, according to federal prosecutors.² Prosecutors allege he gave officers the same false identification he had used at the hostel.² The district attorney’s office says police recovered a 9mm handgun with a 3D-printed receiver, a homemade silencer, ammunition and the fake ID.³

Altoona police filed charges of forgery, carrying a firearm without a license, tampering with records, false identification and possession of an instrument of crime.¹⁶ As of October 2025, a Blair County judge had put those charges on hold, and federal prosecutors had said the federal government intends to keep custody of Mangione until its case concludes, including sentencing.¹⁶ The sources reviewed report no later development in the Pennsylvania case.

The charges

On Dec. 17, 2024, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office announced an 11-count state indictment: one count of first-degree murder in furtherance of terrorism, two counts of second-degree murder (one charged as an act of terrorism), seven weapons-possession counts and one count of possessing a forged instrument.³ Federal prosecutors filed a four-count complaint two days later, charging two stalking counts, murder through use of a firearm, which carried a possible death sentence, and a firearm-and-silencer count.² Mangione pleaded not guilty in both courts.¹⁷⁴

The death penalty

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in April 2025 that federal prosecutors would seek the death penalty, calling the killing “a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination.”¹⁷ Mangione’s lawyers called the announcement a “political stunt.”¹⁷

On Jan. 30, 2026, Judge Margaret M. Garnett dismissed the two federal firearm counts.¹ She ruled that the stalking offenses in the first two counts “are not ‘crimes of violence’ as a matter of law,” which the firearm counts require, and noted that the dismissal’s chief practical effect was to foreclose the death penalty.¹ She acknowledged that the analysis “may strike the average person—and indeed many lawyers and judges—as tortured and strange,” adding, “The law must be the Court’s only concern.”¹ In a letter on Feb. 27, 2026, federal prosecutors told the court they would not appeal.¹²

The terrorism counts

On Sept. 16, 2025, Justice Gregory Carro dismissed the state counts of first-degree murder in furtherance of terrorism and second-degree murder as a crime of terrorism as legally insufficient.¹⁴¹⁵ He found no evidence that the killing was intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence the government, writing that “there was no evidence presented of such a goal.”¹⁵ Nine state counts remain, including second-degree murder, which carries a possible sentence of 25 years to life.¹⁵ In the same ruling, Carro rejected as premature a defense argument that the parallel prosecutions violated double jeopardy.¹⁴

Pretrial rulings on the backpack

Both courts considered defense challenges to the warrantless search of Mangione’s backpack at his arrest.¹¹ Judge Garnett ruled that the backpack evidence can be used in the federal case, writing that “[t]he search was reasonable under the facts of this case.”¹³ In May 2026, Justice Carro suppressed a gun magazine, cellphone, passport, wallet and computer chip from the state case, but allowed items found in a later search at the police station, including a handgun and a notebook.¹¹

The federal guilty plea

On Aug. 14, 2026, Mangione pleaded guilty before Judge Garnett to the two remaining federal counts: interstate travel for the purpose of stalking Thompson, resulting in his death, and use of electronic communication systems for the purpose of stalking him, resulting in his death.¹¹⁰ It was an open plea, with no agreement with prosecutors.⁷

In his plea, Mangione told the court, “On the morning of Dec. 4, 2024, I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died.”⁸⁷ He admitted that he traveled to Manhattan intending to kill Thompson, armed with a 3D-printed gun fitted with a silencer, and that he understood his actions would place Thompson “in fear of death or bodily injury.”⁸ He said he had emailed company leaders while posing as an investor to get details of the investor conference.⁸¹⁰ He told the court he acted after years of severe pain from a broken back and difficulties with the health insurance system.⁸⁷

At the hearing, prosecutor Dominic Gentile said video showed Mangione arriving in New York by bus on Nov. 24, 2024, and following Thompson in and around the hotel on Dec. 3, and that a gun recovered after his arrest matched shell casings at the scene.⁸ Prosecutors also said they had fingerprints and DNA matching Mangione.⁸

The advisory sentencing guidelines range is 292 to 365 months, according to the government’s letter to the court, and the maximum is life in prison.⁷ Prosecutors will ask for life; Garnett said she will make her own decision and that any federal sentence could be added to whatever the state imposes.⁸

The double-jeopardy fight

Immediately after the plea, the defense moved to dismiss the state case.⁷ Under New York law, a state prosecution can be barred when a related federal case ends in a guilty plea or a sworn jury, a protection stronger than federal law’s.⁶ His lawyers argue that the federal stalking offenses are “coterminous with the conduct committed as part of the murder offense.”⁶ On Aug. 17, Justice Carro canceled the Sept. 8 state trial date while the motion is decided.⁶

In their Oct. 9 response, Manhattan prosecutors argued that the federal stalking counts require that the victim was placed in reasonable fear of death or serious injury, which the state murder charge does not, and that the state charge requires an intent to kill that the federal provision does not.⁵ They also argued that the state gun charges should survive because the federal firearm counts were dismissed, and that jeopardy attaches only when a defendant pleads guilty to an offense he is facing, not when he is merely charged.⁵ If the state case goes to trial, prosecutors could use his federal admissions against him.⁴⁹

Personal backstory

Early life and education

Mangione grew up in Maryland, according to the NYPD’s chief of detectives.¹⁸ He graduated from the Gilman School in Baltimore in 2016 as valedictorian, according to the school’s website.¹⁸ A University of Pennsylvania spokesman said he earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science there in 2020.¹⁸

Career

Mangione worked for a time at the car-buying website TrueCar and left in 2023, according to the company’s chief executive.¹⁸ Bloomberg News describes him as a former data engineer.⁸ In 2022 he lived at a co-living space in Honolulu, according to a spokesman for that business.¹⁸

Health

In his federal plea, Mangione told the court he had suffered years of severe pain from a broken back.⁸⁷ A spokesman for the Honolulu co-living space said Mangione had severe back pain dating from childhood and left to have surgery on the mainland.¹⁸ No court has made findings about his health, and no mental-health testimony or findings appear in the sources reviewed.

In custody

As of September 2025, Mangione was held at a federal jail in Brooklyn.¹⁴ At his plea hearing he wore jail clothing rather than the suits he had worn at earlier appearances.⁹ No statement from his family since the federal plea appears in the sources reviewed.