Luigi Mangione, alleged CEO killer, gets murder trial date set for Oct. 13

A Manhattan federal judge on Friday set an Oct. 13 trial date for the murder case against Luigi Mangione, the Maryland man accused of stalking and fatally shooting a UnitedHealthcare CEO on a midtown sidewalk in protest of the country’s health care system.

If the case is eligible for death penalty punishment, U.S. District Court Judge Margaret Garnett said jury selection  would be pushed back to Jan. 11.

A date has still not been set for the state murder case against Mangione, though that case had been scheduled to be heard first.

Federal prosecutors charged Mangione with two counts of stalking, murder through the use of a firearm and illegal gun possession after they say he staked out health insurance executive Brian Thompson ahead of a Dec. 4, 2024, investor conference in midtown, then shot him in the back with a homemade gun before fleeing to Altoona, Pennsylvania. Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

After a weeklong manhunt, employees in an Altoona McDonald’s tipped off local police that a person fitting the shooter’s description was in the restaurant.

Defense lawyers argued that the responding officers surrounded Mangione, a University of Pennsylvania graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, and began to interrogate him without informing him of his right against self-incrimination — known as a Miranda warning.

During evidentiary hearings last year in the Manhattan case, Altoona police officers testified that they believed Mangione fit the description for the suspect of the CEO shooter.

Mangione gave police a fake name, Mark Rosario, and a fake New Jersey driver's license, but then admitted he was lying, officials said.

As they prepared to arrest him, police moved Mangione's backpack to a table approximately 10 feet away. They then searched the suspect and his bag, finding a loaded handgun magazine, according to body camera footage shown in court. After taking the bag to police headquarters, police did an inventory search of the bag without a warrant, finding a ghost gun, a homemade silencer, more ammunition and a red notebook with what prosecutors have described as an alleged "manifesto" admitting the crime and condemning the health care industry for greed and corruption.

Mangione's lawyers, hoping to suppress the evidence, argued that police violated their client's right against unlawful search and seizure.

Aside from setting potential federal trial dates, the judge heard testimony from an Altoona police department training officer about the policies and procedures for searching a suspect in Altoona.

Deputy Chief Nathan Snyder explained how the general orders are established and the way in which officers are trained in lawful searches.

Federal prosecutor Dominic Gentile and defense attorney Marc Agnifilo volleyed questions over whether a warrant was necessary to search the bag once the loaded handgun magazine was discovered.

 Snyder agreed with Gentile that a warrant was not necessary because a dangerous instrument had been found and then agreed with Agnifilo that a warrant would have be necessary because the bag was a closed container. 

Aside from the search and seizure questions, defense attorneys have asked the judge to rule out the death penalty in the case. Mangione's lawyers said that stalking does not qualify as a predicate act that would allow the government to seek the death penalty.

The judge did not rule on the search or capital punishment issues on Friday, but scheduled another court date for next Friday.