The Ivy League graduate, Luigi Mangione, accused of shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a street in midtown Manhattan last December, pleaded not guilty to the four count indictment brought by federal prosecutors. Attorney general Bondi has asked prosecutors to seek the death penalty if Mr. Mangione is convicted of the charges.  

“Not guilty,” he said to the judge.

Mr. Mangione was walked into the courtroom from a side door, in handcuffs. He was wearing a tan prison jumpsuit and was sporting a new, short haircut. It was a stark contrast to his prior court appearances where he wrote a preppy outfit complete with a crew-necked sweater, collared shirt, and loafers — with no socks.

When Mr. Mangione entered the courtroom, a crowd of about 20, largely female supporters from the public audibly gasped.

His defense attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, who wore a white blazer, complained that she’d found out the federal government had been eavesdropping on Mr. Mangione’s phone calls with his defense team, and had handed over the tapes to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

“We were just informed by state court prosecutors that they were eavesdropping on his attorney calls,” Ms. Agnifilo told the judge. “They said it was inadvertent that they listened to a call between Mangione and me. I am the lead attorney.”

The judge, Margaret Garnett, told prosecutors she wanted a letter from them assuring her that Mr. Mangione had been given access to a secure line.

Ms. Agnifilo also said she’s moving to have Mr. Mangione’s federal trial held first since it’s a death penalty case. Currently, his state trial is set to begin first.

When asked by the judge if a trial date for the state case had been set yet, Ms. Agnifilo said it had not, but that “there was a handshake deal between the prior administration and the Manhattan district attorney’s office” to try the state case first. But now, “given that this is a capital case,” she intended to seek that the first trial take place at federal court. 

As the Sun reported, a grand jury indicted Mr. Mangione on four federal charges last week, including murder through the use of a firearm, which carries a maximum sentence of death, two counts of stalking and a gun offense. Prosecutors filed a notice ahead of Friday’s arraignment, confirming that they intend to seek the death penalty.   

“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,” the filing read. “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.”

Mr. Mangione’s defense team, led by Ms. Agnifilo, called Ms. Bondi’s decision to seek the death penalty “political stunt” when she filed a motion asking the judge to block the death penalty for her client last week, arguing the attorney general had violated Mr. Mangione’s due process rights, has disregarded proper legal protocol by publicly announcing her desire for the death penalty, and thus prejudiced the jury pool. Ms. Agnifilo also  criticized Ms. Bondi’s call for the death penalty as intended to please President Trump, and disregarding of the fact that her client is innocent until proven guilty. 

Mr. Mangione, who also faces an 11 count indictment in state court, where he is charged with terrorism, is accused of killing Thompson, a Minnesota father of two, who was a senior executive at the UnitedHealth Group, the country’s largest health insurance company, last December. Thompson was visiting New York on business and was on his way to an investor conference in the early morning hours, when Mr. Mangione allegedly shot him from behind on a midtown sidewalk, in front of the New York Hilton. 

The alleged assassin, a tech enthusiast who comes from an influential real estate family in Towson, Maryland, outside Baltimore, and was his high school’s valedictorian before earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Pennsylvania, allegedly fled New York City on a bicycle, riding through Central Park, within hours of the shooting.   

After a five-day manhunt, during which surveillance pictures of the suspect were circulated on national media and flooded the internet, Mr. Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s at Altoona, Pennsylvania, where an employee called the police after a customer had recognized the young man, who had removed his face mask to eat.

According to police reports, Mr. Mangione carried a 9-millimeter 3D-printed handgun, two ammunition magazines, multiple live cartridges, a homemade silencer, and a fake New Jersey drivers license, which he is believed to have used to check into a hostel at Manhattan’s Bloomingdale neighborhood where he stayed before he murdered the executive. 

Mr. Mangione, who also faces gun possession and other charges in Pennsylvania, which means he has three separate indictments in three jurisdictions, was extradited to New York in late December and brought to court with great fanfare by a phalanx of law enforcement officers.

Judge Garnett set the next hearing in federal court for December 5 at 11am, and told the parties that “My goal will be to leave that conference with a trial date set for 2026.”  

The judge also said the defense can make a new motion to preclude the government from seeking the death penalty, and that after the appropriate response by the government, and a follow-up answer by the defense, she would rule on that issue. Judge Garnett also set a schedule for the evidence to be turned over to the defense, which according to prosecutors exceeds one terabyte of documents, testimonies, surveillance videos, and photographs, gathered by law enforcements in New York and Pennsylvania and by the FBI.     

Outside the courthouse, Chelsea Manning — the activist and former Army officer sentenced to prison for giving classified material to Wikileaks before her sentence was commuted by President Obama — who had attended the 30 minute long hearing, told reporters, “They have a capital case that’s being speed run … that is, we don’t do that, we don’t do that here.” Ms. Manning added that, “We don’t do that in America. We don’t do that in our justice system. We don’t speed run justice.”

When asked if she was a supporter of Mr. Mangione, she said she is “a supporter of the justice system being done in a fair manner.”