Luigi Mangione’s legal representatives are urging prosecutors to verify if his mother genuinely informed the police that the alleged assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was an act she could envision her son committing. The defense team questions whether this statement was indeed made or if law enforcement fabricated it, considering it a “highly prejudicial false statement.”

The controversy stems from a press briefing on December 17, 2024, where NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny recounted that a lead in a missing person case in San Francisco directed them to the suspect during an intense search for Thompson’s alleged murderer.

Kenny explained that Mangione’s mother had reported him missing to the San Francisco police on November 18, 2024. The detective handling that case contacted the NYPD, noting that the individual he was seeking bore a resemblance to the image of the suspect smiling as he checked into a Manhattan hostel shortly before Thompson’s death.

Luigi Mangione appeared in Manhattan Supreme Court on September 16, 2025, for a hearing related to the murder charges against him in the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. (Curtis Means for DailyMail/Pool)

Investigators subsequently reached out to Mangione’s mother on December 7, 2024.

According to Kenny, during their conversation, she did not explicitly identify her son in the photograph but mentioned that the crime was something she could potentially see him doing. Kenny added, “This information was intended to be relayed to detectives the following morning; however, we fortunately apprehended him before any further action was necessary.”

Kenny’s remarks were widely reported by major news outlets, including Fox News Digital, and they were cited in a book published this month about the case.

Read the defense filing:

Mangione’s defense argued in a new court filing that they have not been provided any discovery documents related to this allegation involving his mother, Kathleen Mangione.

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was killed in December 2024. (AP Photo/UnitedHealth Group via AP)

“To date, there has been no documentation provided in discovery that confirms the Chief of Detectives’ statement as to Mrs. Mangione’s alleged statement,” one of his lawyers, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, wrote to a New York state judge. “In fact, all the discovery provided so far indicates that she did not make such a statement.”

She added that she could see only two plausible explanations — one that the statement was never made, or two, that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office had failed to meet its discovery obligations.

Bragg’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg arrives at Daniel Penny’s trial following a lunch break at the Manhattan Supreme Criminal Court building in New York City on Monday, December 2, 2024. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital)

“We ask that the Court direct the District Attorney’s Office to state for the record whether Mrs. Mangione made this statement to law enforcement,” she wrote.

Through a spokesperson, Friedman Agnifilo declined to comment.

On Dec. 9, 2024, police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, received a tip that someone recognized Mangione from a wanted poster and that he was eating breakfast at the local McDonald’s.

They arrested him there.