U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi says she has ordered federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a New York City hotel in December of last year.
“Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson — an innocent man and father of two young children — was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America,” Bondi said in a statement issued by the Department of Justice on Tuesday.
“After careful consideration, I have directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case as we carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again,” Bondi continued.
It is the first time the Justice Department has sought to bring the death penalty since President Donald Trump returned to office in January with a vow to resume federal executions.
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In a statement to Reuters, Mangione’s lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo called the decision to seek the death penalty “barbaric.”
“While claiming to protect against murder, the federal government moves to commit the pre-meditated, state-sponsored murder of Luigi,” Friedman Agnifilo said.
Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate, faces separate federal and state murder charges for the killing, which rattled the business community while galvanizing health insurance critics.
The federal charges include murder through use of a firearm, which carries the possibility of the death penalty. The state charges carry a maximum punishment of life in prison. Mangione has pleaded not guilty to a state indictment and has not entered a plea to the federal charges.
If Mangione is convicted in the federal case, the jury would determine in a separate phase of the trial whether to recommend the death penalty. Any such recommendation must be unanimous, and the judge would be required to impose it.
Authorities say Mangione gunned down Thompson as he was walking to an investor conference in midtown Manhattan on the morning of Dec 4.
Mangione was arrested in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s after a five-day search, carrying a gun that matched the one used in the shooting and a fake ID, police said. He also was carrying a notebook expressing hostility toward the health insurance industry and especially wealthy executives, according to federal prosecutors.
He has gained a following of supporters since his arrest and is viewed by some as a vigilante-type hero. Some believe his alleged crimes were an act of warranted defiance against unchecked corporate greed.
— With files from The Associated Press and Reuters
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