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NEW YORK, Dec 23 (Reuters) – Luigi Mangione, the man accused of fatally gunning down health insurance executive Brian Thompson on a Manhattan street, pleaded not guilty on Monday to New York state murder charges that brand him a terrorist.
Mangione, 26, was escorted into Judge Gregory Carro’s 13th-floor courtroom in the New York state criminal courthouse in lower Manhattan with a court officer on each arm, and a procession of a half dozen officers following him. He was in handcuffs and shackles, and wore a burgundy sweater over a white-collared shirt.
Mangione leaned into a microphone and said “not guilty” when Carro asked how he pleaded to the 11-count indictment charging him with murder as an act of terrorism and weapons offenses.
If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group’s (UNH.N), opens new tab insurance unit UnitedHealthcare, was shot dead on Dec. 4 outside a hotel in midtown Manhattan where the company was gathering for an investor conference.
The brazen killing and ensuing five-day manhunt captivated Americans. While public officials have condemned the killing, some Americans who decry the steep costs of healthcare and insurance companies’ power to deny paying for some medical treatments have feted Mangione as a folk hero.
Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Dec. 9. After deciding last week not to fight extradition, he was transferred to New York, where he was led off a helicopter in lower Manhattan by a large phalanx of police officers and New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Monday’s arraignment was the second court appearance in New York for Mangione, who also faces a four-count federal criminal complaint charging him with stalking and killing Thompson.
He has not yet been asked to enter a plea in that case. U.S. Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker ordered Mangione detained at a Dec. 19 hearing in Manhattan federal court. The federal charges would make him eligible for the death penalty, should the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan decide to pursue it.
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