Mangione pleads guilty to federal charges in UnitedHealthcare CEO killing

The 28-year-old admits to shooting Brian Thompson in federal court but still faces separate state charges.

Luigi Mangione has pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges in the United States tied to the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

The 28-year-old defendant appeared in a Manhattan federal court on Friday. He was charged with two federal offences: interstate stalking resulting in death and stalking through use of interstate facilities resulting in death. He pleaded guilty to both.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 3Google pulls bad McDonald’s reviews after Luigi Mangione’s arrest
• list 2 of 3Who is Luigi Mangione, the suspect in UnitedHealthcare CEO’s murder?
• list 3 of 3Luigi Mangione charged with UnitedHealthcare CEO’s murder

At the hearing, Mangione recounted how he researched UnitedHealthcare’s annual investor conference.

He said he then emailed the company, posing as an investor, to learn more details about the conference and used the information to target Thompson.

Thompson’s family was seated in the courtroom while Mangione admitted to killing the insurance executive.

“I shot Mr Thompson and he died,“ Mangione reportedly told the court. “I knew what I was doing was illegal.”

Jamie McDonald, the US attorney for the southern district of New York, hailed the plea in what he described as a “deliberate, calculated and premeditated” killing of Thompson.

“[Mangione] committed this murder in an attempt to draw public attention to his dislike of certain businesses,” McDonald said at a news conference after the hearing. “No grievance, political belief or ideological cause can ever justify murder. There can be no celebrity in assassination.”

McDonald said the guilty plea, which he described as “open”, allows his office to seek the maximum punishment allowed under the law: life imprisonment.

One of Mangione’s attorneys, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said the defendant had accepted “full responsibility” for Thompson’s killing. But she argued that her client has been treated unfairly after facing both federal and state charges.

The federal charges are separate from the state-level case against Mangione, which includes allegations of second-degree murder and firearm offences.

Mangione had previously pleaded not guilty to those charges and has not updated his plea. His lawyers filed a motion on Friday to dismiss the state murder charges.

Previously, last September, a New York judge tossed out a state-level terrorism charge as “legally insufficient”.

“Despite this being a single, isolated event, Mr Mangione has … successfully fought off terrorism charges and the death penalty,” Agnifilo said on Friday. “He’s been treated differently from every other defendant charged with this offense in New York.”

The state-level trial, set to begin next month, could be dismissed under New York’s double-jeopardy law, which protects people from being prosecuted twice for the same offense.

Still, the request to dismiss Mangione’s state charges will likely meet stiff resistance from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who has said his office “remains fully committed” to pursuing justice for Thompson’s family.

Thompson – a 50-year-old father of two who oversaw the nation’s largest healthcare insurer – was fatally shot on a New York City street in December 2024.

That led to a five-day manhunt, resulting in Mangione being taken into custody at a McDonald’s restaurant in Pennsylvania.

Mangione’s federal sentencing is set for December 18.