Attorneys for the man accused of killing a health insurance CEO are trying to get the death penalty off the table, calling a directive to seek capital punishment “a political stunt.”
Lawyers for Luigi Mangione, who has been charged with murder in the December assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, filed a motion seeking to block the death penalty Friday.
“The stakes could not be higher. The United States government intends to kill Mr. Mangione as a political stunt,” Mangione’s attorneys wrote in the motion filed in Manhattan.
They cited Attorney General Pamela Bondi’s comments when she directed prosecutors to seek the death penalty. When she announced her instructions, she said prosecutors would work to “carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again.”
Mangione is accused of killing Thompson, CEO of the country’s largest private health insurer, in an ambush shooting on a Midtown Manhattan street early Dec. 4.
The words “deny,” “depose” and “delay” were written on two spent shell casings and one bullet found at the scene, authorities said, and prosecutors allege he targeted Thompson and planned the attack.
Mangione is charged with four federal counts, and he is also charged on New York state counts that include first-degree murder in furtherance of terrorism.
Attorneys for Mangione also argue in the motion that procedures have not been followed.
The motion says that Mangione’s attorneys
Luigi Mangione’s attorneys call attempt at death penalty in CEO’s killing a ‘political stunt’
