NEW YORK (AP) — The man accused of shooting down United Healthcare’s CEO outside a Manhattan hotel is now jailed in New York, awaiting arraignment Monday on a state murder charge after he was returned to the city in dramatic fashion to be prosecuted in several courts.
Feathered and wearing orange prison overalls, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione was escorted Thursday by heavily armed police and flown from Pennsylvania to Manhattan, where he appeared in a packed courtroom on federal charges that could carry the death penalty.
The Ivy League graduate, who prosecutors say investigated the health insurance industry and wealthy executives in his writings, did not have to plead to federal murder, stalking and firearms charges in the Dec. 4 killing Brian Thompson. The state indictment charges Mangione with murder as an act of terrorism.
Here’s what happens next in the cases:
Imprisoned in Brooklyn
Mangione is being held without bail at Metropolitan Detention Center, the same federal prison where the hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs and cryptocurrency scammers Sam Bankman-Fried are currently in custody.
The infamous Brooklyn facility, the only federal lockup in the city, has been variously described as “hell on earth” and an “ongoing tragedy” due to deplorable conditions, rampant violence, dysfunction and multiple deaths.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons has said it is increase staffing to make up for staggering shortfallsbut conditions have been so harsh at the prison, which houses about 1,100 inmates, that some judges have refused to send people there.
Government fees are pending
In addition to the federal charges filed Thursday, Mangione still has to answer one state murder charges.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office charged Mangione with murder as an act of terrorismwhich carries a maximum penalty of life in prison without parole. He is also charged with state weapons offenses and possession of false identification.
Prosecutors have said the two cases will proceed on parallel tracks, with the state charges expected to go to trial first.
Mangione’s attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, argued in court Thursday that the terrorism allegations in the state case and the stalking allegations in the federal complaint appear to be contradictory.
“They are two completely different theories,” she said. “These seem to be different cases.”
In 2019, the US Supreme Court upheld a long-standing constitutional rule that allows state and federal governments to prosecute someone for the same crime.
Next court appearance
Mangione will be arraigned Monday in Manhattan on the state charges, according to Bragg’s office.
The University of Pennsylvania alum, who descended from a prominent Maryland family and had also lived in Hawaii, had been expected to be arraigned Thursday on the state charges before the federal charges preceded that appearance.
In the federal case, Mangione could next return to court for a bond hearing or for a preliminary hearing if prosecutors do not obtain a grand jury indictment by mid-January.
The death penalty looms
New York effectively effectively abolished its death penalty in 2007 and the last execution in the state was in 1963. But the federal death penalty remains.
The federal complaint filed against Mangione includes one count of murder with a firearm, which carries the possibility of the death penalty if convicted.
Federal prosecutors have not said whether they will seek the death penalty. That decision will be made in the coming months by Justice Department officials in Washington, likely after President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in on January 20.
President Joe Biden’s the administration put a moratorium on federal executions soon after he took office in 2021, but that hasn’t stopped federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty.
In contrast, the Trump administration carried out 13 executions in the last six months of his first term.
Pennsylvania charges on standby
Mangione also faces forgery and firearms charges in Pennsylvania arising from his arrest last week, but they likely won’t be addressed until the New York charges are resolved.
He initially fought efforts to be returned to New York, but ultimately waived extradition and a preliminary hearing on the Pennsylvania charges on Thursday.
“He is now in their custody,” Blair County District Attorney Peter Weeks said after Mangione was extradited to New York. “We intend to keep our case active and we intend to basically reopen the case when the defendant is available for prosecution in Blair County.”
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Associated Press reporter Larry Neumeister in New York contributed to this story.
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Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo.
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