Luigi Mangione admitted Friday that he shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk, pleading guilty to federal stalking charges that could send him to prison for the rest of his life, as members of Thompson’s family watched from the courtroom gallery.
“I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died,” Mangione, 28, told U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett in Manhattan federal court, reading from a prepared written statement.
Thompson’s widow and several other relatives were seated in the second row as Mangione entered the courtroom wearing a beige prison jumpsuit over a long-sleeved white shirt, with his hands uncuffed behind his back and shackles around his ankles. Members of the family stared at him as he took his seat and reviewed and signed documents alongside his attorneys.
“Mr. Mangione is prepared to plead guilty to the indictment at this time,” defense attorney Karen Agnifilo told the judge.
Mangione appeared somber during the proceeding and at times seemed close to becoming emotional as he answered “yes” to a series of questions concerning the plea and the rights he was surrendering by entering it.
When Garnett informed him that the federal charges could carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, Mangione responded by slightly nodding his head.
Thompson’s widow, Paulette Thompson, sat silently in the gallery and cried during the proceeding as Mangione publicly acknowledged responsibility for her husband’s death.
Mangione’s courtroom demeanor marked a stark contrast to the defiant tone prosecutors have attributed to writings recovered during the investigation. In his statement Friday, Mangione described years of severe back pain and laid out details of the steps he took before targeting Thompson.
Mangione said he had posed as an investor associated with a firm overseeing $150 million in assets and contacted UnitedHealthcare executives by email in an effort to obtain information about the company’s 2024 conference in New York City.
“Before traveling to New York, I used a 3-D printer to make a gun,” he said. “I equipped the gun with a silencer and a magazine.”
Mangione had been scheduled to stand trial in federal court in January on two counts: interstate stalking resulting in death and stalking through use of interstate facilities resulting in death. His guilty plea eliminates the need for that trial.
His sentencing hearing is now scheduled for Dec. 18. Federal prosecutors are expected to seek the maximum punishment, leaving Mangione facing the possibility of spending the remainder of his life behind bars.
The federal plea, however, does not end Mangione’s legal troubles. He continues to face a separate prosecution in New York state court, where he is charged with second-degree murder, second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument and multiple weapons-possession offenses.
Jury selection in the state case is scheduled to begin Sept. 8.
Mangione’s attorneys said following Friday’s hearing that they intend to ask the state court to dismiss that prosecution on double-jeopardy grounds, arguing that proceeding with the state case after his federal guilty plea would improperly subject him to prosecution twice for the same conduct.
Garnett warned Mangione during the hearing that any sentence imposed in the state case could potentially be ordered to run consecutively to his federal sentence.
Thompson, 50, a married father of two, was shot to death outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel in December 2024 as he headed to UnitedHealthcare’s annual investor conference. The killing, carried out in public and followed by the gunman’s escape, immediately triggered a massive law-enforcement search.
Mangione was not federally charged with murder itself. Instead, federal prosecutors charged him with stalking Thompson across state lines and through interstate facilities in conduct that resulted in Thompson’s death.
Authorities searched for Mangione for five days before police arrested him at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where he was spotted while eating breakfast.
Prosecutors have alleged that the killing was not an impulsive act but the culmination of a carefully planned attack motivated by Mangione’s hostility toward the health insurance industry.
According to prosecutors, Mangione wrote a “manifesto” portraying Thompson’s killing as an act of rebellion against what he described as the “rebel against the deadly, greed-fueled health insurance cartel.”
Investigators have also said that shell casings recovered from the scene bore the words “delay” and “deny,” an apparent reference to accusations that health insurers use such practices to avoid paying customers’ claims.
Prosecutors further allege that Mangione wrote that other senior insurance executives could be legitimate targets because the industry “literally extracts human life force for money.”
The killing and Mangione’s subsequent arrest produced an extraordinary public reaction, with some supporters portraying him as a symbol of anger toward health insurers. That support has persisted throughout the criminal proceedings, despite the allegations surrounding Thompson’s killing.
Outside the courthouse following Friday’s guilty plea, that phenomenon was again on display when a passing man shouted his support for Mangione.
“America loves Luigi!” the man yelled.
