Luigi Mangione argues double jeopardy in bid to drop murder case, suppress evidence
Brian Thompson's suspected killer, Luigi Mangione, wants charges of terrorism dropped, and certain evidence suppressed, as he faces the death penalty stemming from Thompson's murder.
Attorneys for the man accused of assassinating UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson filed a motion to the New York Supreme Court on Thursday to suppress evidence in the state's case against him, and to have the case dismissed completely.
Luigi Mangione's attorney, Karen Friedman Angifilo, said in the filing that statements her client made to Altoona, Pennsylvania police before his arrest on Dec. 9, should be excluded from his trial.
She claims that two police officers, who located the alleged murderer inside a McDonald's, "effectively had Mr. Mangione in custody" by blocking the exit to the restaurant while they questioned him, all before arresting him and reading him his Miranda rights.
Friedman Angifilo argues that such questioning violated her client's Fifth Amendment rights, and thus, his statements made to those officers should be excluded from the trial.
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The motion also says evidence collected from Mangione's backpack at the scene of his arrest should be suppressed because police officers did not have a warrant to search the bag, in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights.
"The officers continued their warrantless search through Mr. Mangione's backpack at McDonald's even after he was removed from the restaurant by other officers and driven to the precinct," according to the motion.
Included in the items found inside the backpack that Mangione's defense seeks to suppress are the handgun used in the alleged killing, a silencer, a gun magazine that was loaded with bullets, a red notebook containing Mangione's personal writings, additional writings, a computer chip, an iPhone and several USB flash drives.
Police also found a small item "enclosed in cardboard and wrapped in tape." Inside was a computer chip which was also taken as evidence.
Further, the motion seeks to ban the state "from eliciting lay non-eyewitness identification testimony at trial." The state seeks plans to call NYPD Detective Oscar Diaz and Altoona police officers Joseph Detwiler and Tyler Frye to identify Mangione through surveillance footage based on their "familiarity with the defendant."
"Here, the proposed witnesses are not eyewitnesses to the crime," according to the motion. "Moreover, the witnesses had no interactions with Mr. Mangione prior to the video surveillance to make them ‘sufficiently familiar’ with Mr. Mangione."
The defense also asked the court to dismiss the terrorism charges against Mangione, alleging that the grand jury that indicted him "failed to establish the required element that Mr. Mangione intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policies of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion or affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder, assassination or kidnapping."
Finally, Friedman Angifilo asked the state of New York to drop the entire case against her client, claiming that trying him at the state and federal levels concurrently constitutes double jeopardy and thus a violation of Mangione's Fifth Amendment rights.
"This Court is all that stands between justice and Mr. Mangione being forced to stand trial against illegally obtained evidence, terrorism-related charges that have no application to the alleged shooting of one man and concurrent prosecutions that violate the Double Jeopardy Clause and his constitutional rights," the motion concludes.
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office said they will respond in court filings of their own.
Mangione, 26, was also indicted in the Southern District of New York on federal charges of stalking and murdering Thompson, as well as using electronic communications, interstate travel and a firearm when he allegedly killed the healthcare insurance CEO.
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He was also charged federally with one count of using a firearm to commit murder, one count of interstate stalking resulting in death, one count of stalking through use of interstate facilities resulting in death and one count of discharging a firearm that was equipped with a silencer in furtherance of a crime of violence.
Mangione is accused of ambushing Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel where UnitedHealthcare's annual shareholder conference was being held on Dec. 4, 2024. Prosecutors believe the fatal shooting was meant to send a message to the healthcare insurance industry based on a manifesto found on the suspect when he was arrested days after Thompson's murder.
He would face the death penalty if convicted.
Fox News Digital's Audrey Conklin contributed to this report.
