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Luigi Mangione has been charged with first-degree murder in New York for what prosecutors say was the "horrific, planned and targeted" killing of UnitedHealthcare Chief Executive Brian Thompson. Accused
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the 26-year-old Ivy League graduate, who was arrested last week by local police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, had been formally charged. One count of murder "in furtherance of terrorism" in the first degree, and two counts of murder in the second degree, one of which was charged as "murder as an act of terrorism". He is facing a number of lesser charges, including possession of a firearm.
“This was a horrific, planned, targeted killing intended to shock. . . And intimidation," Bragg told reporters on Tuesday.
The most serious charge, murder in the first degree, carries a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Mangione is being held without bail in Pennsylvania and is scheduled to appear in court Thursday morning.
New York authorities are seeking to bring Mangione back to the city to face charges. Bragg said Mangione could skip his hearing on the extradition request, which could see him in New York custody by the end of the week.
The indictments returned by the grand jury — including the decision to seek the top charge of first-degree murder — show the seriousness with which New York authorities took the top executive of the nation's largest health insurer. has reached the assassination, which shook New York. and corporate America.
Bragg's office also disclosed more details from the ongoing investigation. They said Mangione, an engineering graduate, arrived in New York a week before Thompson's murder, checking into an Upper West Side hostel on Nov. 24 using a fake New Jersey ID.
Mangione overstayed his stay at the hostel, prosecutors allege, and left on the morning of Dec. 4 to wait for Thompson outside the midtown Manhattan hotel where he was staying ahead of UnitedHealth's investor day. Thompson was shot once in the back and once in the leg, and died after being taken to a hospital.
Bragg alleged that Mangione used a "3D printed ghost gun equipped with a 3D printed suppressor" to shoot the executive. "These weapons are spreading rapidly throughout New York City and across the country. . . , as this case makes painfully clear, they are just as deadly as conventional weapons," Bragg added.
A tremendous wave of praise and celebration has spread Some corners of the Internet After the assassination, especially in relation to the American health care system.
"We have witnessed a shocking and horrific celebration of cold-blooded murder," New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Tuesday.
“We don't celebrate killings, and we don't lionize the killing of anyone. Any attempt to rationalize this is outrageous, reckless and insulting to our deeply held principles of justice,” he added.