Luigi Mangione faced a significant legal hurdle when a judge permitted critical evidence from his arrest to be presented to the jury.
Judge Gregory Carro concluded that the jury will be allowed to see a notebook discovered in Mangione’s backpack. This notebook, allegedly penned by Mangione, an Ivy League graduate, contains notes about his intention to ‘whack’ a prominent figure in the health insurance sector.
The judge also approved the inclusion of a 9mm ‘ghost gun’ discovered in Mangione’s backpack, considered the potential murder weapon, as evidence in the trial.
Nevertheless, other items such as a magazine of bullets hidden in underwear, a cellphone, passport, and wallet will not be presented to the jury.
Additionally, the judge ruled that Mangione’s statements to a prison guard in a Pennsylvania jail, where he claimed to have a 3-D printed gun in his backpack, are admissible in court.
Mangione, dressed in a suit and seated with his attorneys, showed no visible reaction as the ruling was announced.
The decision is a huge blow to Mangione in his state case in New York for allegedly shooting UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson outside a hotel in Manhattan in December 2024.
Mangione, who turned 28 earlier this month, has pleaded not guilty to murder in the second degree and to weapons charges along with possession of a forged instrument.
He is due to go on trial in September.
Late last year, Judge Carro held a nine-day hearing to determine what evidence could be allowed after Mangione’s lawyers claimed his constitutional rights against illegal search and seizure were violated.
Luigi Mangione appeared in court on Monday as a judge ruled on whether key evidence from his arrest can be shown to jurors
Mangione, pictured in a court sketch in April, is accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson in December 2024
They claimed that police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, did not have a warrant to search Mangione when he was arrested at a McDonald’s in the town five days after the December 4 shooting.
Among the contents of the bag was a red notebook which prosecutors called a ‘manifesto’ while Mangione’s lawyers have referred to it as a ‘journal.’
Writing in October 2024, Mangione said he wanted to ‘whack’ the chief executive of an insurance company at its annual ‘bean counter conference’.
Six weeks later Thompson, 59, a father-of-two, was shot outside the Hilton Midtown during a UnitedHealthcare conference.
During Monday’s hearing, Judge Carro told the court that police in Altoona conducted an ‘improper, warrantless search’ of Mangione at the local McDonald’s.
That meant the magazine, cellphone, passport and wallet which were found at that point will not be allowed in as evidence.
However, once the officers took Mangione to the police station they carried out a ‘valid inventory search’, the judge said.
That means the gun, silence and the manifesto, which were discovered at the police station, will be allowed in.
Judge Gregory Caro will rule on whether prosecutors can show the jury the contents of Mangione’s backpack when he was arrested in December 2024. A backpack recovered by police in Central Park during the investigation
The 28-year-old Ivy League graduate was charged with murder in the second degree and weapons charges along with possession of a forged instrument, all of which he denies, over the death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson
The judge also ruled that any statements made by Mangione before he was technically in custody were not admissible.
The judge ruled that the cutoff was eight minutes after the first officers spoke to Mangione.
Up until that point, Mangione admitted to one cop that he shouldn’t have given him a fake ID with the name ‘Mark Rosario’ on it.
That admission will not be allowed as evidence, the judge ruled.
According to prosecutors, a journal entry from October 2024 allegedly described the investor conference as ‘a true windfall.’
The journal stated: ‘It embodies everything wrong with our health system’.
In another entry from August 2024, Mangione allegedly wrote: ‘I finally feel confident about what I will do. The details are coming together.
‘And I don’t feel any doubt about whether it’s right/justified. I’m glad-in a way-that I’ve procrastinated bc it allowed me to learn more about (UnitedHealthcare).
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down on his way to a conference in Manhattan in 2024
CCTV footage release by NYPD at the time showed the suspect, Mangione, leaving the scene with a backpack on a bike
‘The target is insurance. It checks every box.’
The other items in the backpack included a 9mm ‘ghost gun’, or a 3D printed firearm with no serial number, a loaded gun magazine wrapped in a pair of underwear and silencer.
Police who arrested Mangione said that the bullets in the magazine convinced them he was the killer.
According to prosecutors, the bullets used to kill Thompson had the words ‘delay’, ‘deny’ and ‘depose’ written on them in reference to the language used to deny health insurance claims.
Mangione recently caught a break in the separate federal case, which is taking place in New York in a courtroom a few blocks from the state court.
US District Judge Margaret M. Garnett dismissed four of the federal counts including murder through the use of a firearm and a related firearms offense.
Critically, the dismissal of the murder charge meant Mangione is no longer eligible for the death penalty.
Mangione still faces two counts of interstate stalking, which carry a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
The federal case is due to go on trial next year once the state matter is concluded.
Mangione is currently being held at the grim Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal prison in Brooklyn whose previous inmates included R. Kelly and Diddy.
Ahead of his hearing on Monday, Judge Garnett ordered the Bureau of Prisons to make sure Mangione could wear civilian clothes.
She said that he has to be given a suit, one shirt, a pair of socks and a pair of shoes, but no laces.
