Luigi Mangione charged with homicide of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson

New York prosecutors on Monday charged Ivy League grad Luigi Mangione with the homicide of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, court docket information present.

The cost got here hours after Mangione, 26, was arraigned in a Pennsylvania courtroom on gun and different prices associated to his arrest earlier Monday at a McDonald‘s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a employee there informed police he was performing suspiciously.

Mangione was charged by the Manhattan district legal professional’s workplace with second-degree homicide, legal possession of a loaded firearm, possession of a silencer and possession of a solid instrument in state court docket in Manhattan on Monday night time, in response to a court docket document.

He’s accused of fatally capturing Thompson early Wednesday morning outdoors the Hilton resort in midtown Manhattan.

Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two, was headed to an investor assembly for UnitedHealth Group, which owns his firm when he was shot by a masked gunman with a pistol that appeared to have a silencer connected.

New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch has stated the shooter lay in look ahead to a number of minutes for Thompson earlier than executing what she known as a “premeditated, preplanned focused assault.”

Shell casings discovered on the scene had the phrases “delay,” “deny” and “depose” written on them. The primary two of these phrases are generally used to explain the ways of well being insurers, reminiscent of Thompson’s, to restrict the quantity of advantages paid out to clients.

UnitedHealthcare is the most important personal well being insurer in the US, with greater than $200 billion in annual income.

The U.S. Senate Everlasting Subcommittee on Investigations in October launched a report that discovered UnitedHealthcare, Humana and CVS “every denied prior authorization requests for post-acute care at far larger charges than they did for different kinds of care, leading to diminished entry to post-acute look after Medicare Benefit beneficiaries.” Medicare Benefit provides well being advantages beneath the federal Medicare program which are managed by personal insurance coverage firms.

Mangione, whose sister is a physician, reportedly has suffered from persistent again ache for years. The profile of his account on the social media account X incorporates an x-ray picture of an individual’s again with screws in it.

Thompson’s household held a personal funeral for him in Minnesota earlier Monday, as Mangione was being taken into custody and questioned by Altoona police.

Police stated {that a} backpack with Mangione when he was confronted on the McDonald’s was discovered to include a gun, silencer and a number of rounds of 9 mm ammunition.

Altoona police stated that when Mangione eliminated his face masks on the McDonald’s at their request they instantly acknowledged him because the individual sought by New York authorities in reference to Thompson’s killing.

He was taken into custody after giving officers a pretend New Jersey ID that’s believed to be the identical one he used to verify right into a Manhattan hostel in late November.

Mangione, who comes from a rich Baltimore-area household, is being held with out bond at a jail in Pennsylvania on the costs in that state referring to the gun and phony IDs he was carrying.

The suspect, who graduated in 2020 with each bachelor’s and grasp’s levels from the College of Pennsylvania, on the time of his arrest was carrying a handwritten manifesto that referenced the health-care trade.

In a press release launched after his arrest in Pennsylvania, Mangione’s household stated, “Our household is shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest.”

“We provide our prayers to the household of Brian Thompson and we ask individuals to wish for all concerned,” the assertion stated. “We’re devastated by this information.”

Earlier than his arrest Monday, police in New York didn’t know Mangione’s id whilst they sought a “individual of curiosity” who was seen on surveillance pictures touring to and from the scene of Thompson’s slaying.

These pictures had been extensively publicized and had been seen by the officers who apprehended Mangione in Altoona.

A lot of the pictures confirmed an individual sporting a masks or gaiter over their face. However two pictures confirmed the person believed to be Mangione when he was on the hostel, and a feminine employee there requested him to indicate her his face.

Authorities imagine the gunman fled New York inside hours of that capturing, probably on a bus from the Port Authority terminal in Washington Heights, in northern Manhattan.