Prosecutors to seek death penalty for Luigi Mangione, UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect
US Attorney General Pam Bondi called the killing of Brian Thompson a ‘premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America’
US Attorney General Pam Bondi said Tuesday that she has directed prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, following through on the president’s campaign promise to vigorously pursue capital punishment.
It was the first time the Justice Department has sought to bring the death penalty since President Donald Trump returned to office in January with a vow to resume federal executions after they were halted under the previous administration.
“Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson – an innocent man and father of two young children – was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America,” Bondi said in a statement. She described Thompson’s killing as “an act of political violence”.
Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate from a prominent Maryland real estate family, faces separate federal and state murder charges after authorities say he gunned down Thompson, 50, outside a Manhattan hotel on December 4 as the executive arrived for UnitedHealthcare’s annual investor conference.
Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said Tuesday that in seeking the death penalty “the Justice Department has moved from the dysfunctional to the barbaric”.