Luigi Mangione extradited to New York to face federal murder, stalking charges
The suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson is being charged with federal murder and stalking crimes, according to a court document filed on Thursday, alongside state murder and terrorism charges previously announced by New York prosecutors.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are charging Luigi Mangione, 26, with the federal crime of murder using a firearm, two charges of stalking and a charge of using an illegal gun silencer, according to a criminal complaint.
The complaint accused Mangione of spending months planning an attack driven by his contempt for the health insurance industry and wealthy corporate executives.
Mangione was transferred into the custody of New York City police earlier on Thursday after he waived his right to extradition proceedings at a court hearing in Pennsylvania, the state where he was arrested following a five-day manhunt.
Luigi Mangione now also faces a terrorism charge in New York, for what prosecutors say is the ‘brazen, targeted and premeditated shooting’ of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
According to the federal complaint, a notebook Altoona police found in Mangione’s possession contained several handwritten pages that “express hostility towards the health insurance industry and wealthy executives in particular.” A notebook entry dated Oct. 22 described an intent to “wack” the chief executive of an insurance company at its investor conference.
“This investor conference is a true windfall,” one entry found in the notebook said, according to the complaint. “Most importantly — the message becomes self evident.”
Police also found a letter in the suspect’s possession addressed “To the Feds” that stated: “I wasn’t working with anyone,” according to the complaint.
“This was fairly trivial: Some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience,” the letter said, using an abbreviation for computer-aided design.
Mangione has been ‘overcharged,’ lawyer says
Earlier this week, a grand jury in New York indicted Mangione on 11 counts of breaking state law, including first-degree murder and murder as an act of terrorism. Mangione has been in custody since his arrest and has not yet entered a plea. His New York defence lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, has said Mangione has been “overcharged” and that he would fight the charges in court.
Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pa., on Dec. 9, five days after Thompson was fatally shot outside a Manhattan hotel before a company conference in what law-enforcement officials have called a premeditated assassination.
While the killing of Thompson has been broadly condemned, Mangione has been feted as a folk hero by some Americans who decry the steep costs of healthcare and the power that insurance companies have to deny paying for some medical treatments.
Federal charges potentially allow prosecutors to pursue the death penalty, which has been abolished in New York for decades.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch called any attempt to rationalize Luigi Mangione’s alleged actions ‘vile’ and ‘reckless.’ Her comments came at a press conference on Tuesday announcing Mangione’s indictment for murder in the killing of UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson.
Prosecutors say that Mangione “travelled in interstate commerce” by taking a bus from Atlanta to New York before Thompson’s killing and also used his cellphone and the internet to plan and carry out his attack, and so have jurisdiction.
Mangione is due to make an initial court appearance on the federal charges before U.S. Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker in Manhattan on Thursday afternoon.
“The federal government’s reported decision to pile on top of an already overcharged first-degree murder and state terror case is highly unusual and raises serious constitutional and statutory double jeopardy concerns,” Mangione’s lawyer Friedman Agnifilo said in a statement. “We are ready to fight these charges in whatever court they are brought.”
Supporters crowd courthouse
In Pennsylvania, police said Mangione had a self-assembled 9-mm handgun in his backpack and a homemade silencer when he was arrested after being spotted at a McDonald’s restaurant. The handgun resembled the weapon used to kill Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the largest U.S. health insurer.
Mangione, a Maryland native who had lived in Hawaii, also had multiple fake identification documents, including a fake New Jersey ID that was used to check into a Manhattan hostel days before Thompson’s shooting, police said.
In Pennsylvania, Mangione has been charged with forgery and illegally possessing an unlicensed gun.
At the Blair County courthouse on Thursday morning, Mangione, appearing in an orange jail jumpsuit, had a preliminary hearing for the Pennsylvania charges, immediately followed by a second on New York’s extradition request. A small crowd of supporters stood outside the courthouse, some waving signs that condemned the health insurance industry.
The Pennsylvania prosecutors told the court they had agreed to pause the Pennsylvania proceedings until after the conclusion of the New York prosecutions.
The suspected killer of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, Luigi Mangione has been receiving a startling amount of online praise recently. David Gilbert, a reporter at Wired, discusses what he’s seen online and why some might be glorifying Mangione.
Mangione spoke only briefly at the extradition hearing, saying he understood his rights and telling Judge David Consiglio he consented to surrender to New York police.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office is accusing Mangione of an act of terrorism under New York law because Thompson’s killing was intended to intimidate or coerce civilians or “influence the policies of a unit of government.”
Published at Sun, 15 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +0000
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he hasn’t yet met with exiled Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad — even though he personally made the decision to grant the dictator and his family asylum when Syria’s longtime dictator fled the country after his regime crumbled.
He made the comment during an annual press conference and question-and-answer session, where he fielded questions from both journalists in the audience and Russian citizens who submitted their queries ahead of time.
The topics ranged from Syria, Ukraine, Russia’s economy and Putin’s relationship with U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, all part of a carefully choreographed spectacle that lasted for four-and-a-half hours.
Putin, who said he hasn’t spoken to Trump in four years, said he is open to meeting with the incoming U.S. president, who has repeatedly vowed to end the war in Ukraine soon after taking office on Jan. 20.
While many questions from the audience came from journalists affiliated with Russian state media, NBC correspondent Keir Simmons asked Putin if he was prepared to compromise when it comes to Ukraine — a question the Russian president didn’t fully answer.
“We are ready,” Putin said without offering any specifics. “We just need the other side to be ready, too. For negotiations and for compromise.”
The Kremlin has said repeatedly it will not negotiate with Ukraine unless it renounces its ambition to join NATO and withdraws soldiers from territories now controlled by Russian troops.
Kursk
Vladimir Putin says his forces will regain full control of the western Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops launched an offensive last summer. But the Russian president, who held an annual press briefing in Moscow on Thursday, would not provide a specific date.
Putin was also asked about Russia’s fight to recapture several hundred square kilometres of the Kursk region, which Ukraine still controls after a lightning offensive in western Russia in August.
He said Russian troops are fighting to take Kursk back, but there is no firm date when they will “liberate” it.
“The situation [at the front] is changing dramatically. There is movement along the entire front line every day,” he said.
He noted the campaign into Ukraine should have begun before February 2022, saying Russia should have “systematically prepared for it.”
Though he went on to praise the heroic efforts of Russian soldiers, there was no mention of the thousands of North Korean troops that Ukraine and the U.S. say are fighting alongside the Russians.
At least 100 of them have been killed according to a South Korean lawmaker who cited information from the country’s spy agency on Thursday.
Russian state media reported that two million Russian citizens submitted questions ahead of Putin’s press conference on topics that ranged from the cost of living, mortgage rates and what Russia still calls its “special military operation.”
Economy
The first question was about Russia’s economy, given the surging inflation rate driven by the country funnelling money into the war effort. Throughout the country, there have been concerns about the rising price of food and groceries.
Putin admitted that the inflation rate, which sits above nine per cent, is an “alarming” figure but said government measures to cool the economy are working. He said economic growth is expected to be about four per cent this year and will slow in 2025.
“I think the [growth rate] next year should be somewhere around two to 2.5 per cent, a sort of soft landing in order to maintain macroeconomic indicators,” he said.
Syria
Putin was asked about Russia’s presence in Syria, where it has two major military bases, the Hmeimim airbase and a naval base at the port of Tartous.
Satellite images indicate that Russia is in the process of moving some of the military equipment, but Putin said that Russia has proposed that its “partners” use the airbase for humanitarian purposes.
The future of the airbase, which was used to launch strikes across Syria in support of Assad, is now in question, given that rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, has taken control of Damascus, pushing out the Assad government that Russia spent years backing.
“On the whole, we have achieved our goal,” Putin claimed when speaking about the bases. “We maintain relations with all the groups that control the situation there,
He also condemned Israel’s seizure of territories in the country, and he said he believed Israel had no intention of withdrawing its troops from Syria.
U.S. journalist Austin Tice
During the press conference, Simmons asked Putin if he would speak to Assad about missing U.S. journalist Austin Tice, who was taken captive during a reporting trip to Syria in August 2012.
Putin replied that Tice was someone who disappeared 12 years ago during a civil war but then said he would ask Assad about the American when the two speak.
Tice, a former U.S. marine, was one of the first U.S. journalists to make it into Syria after the start of the war.
U.S. President Joe Biden said earlier this month the government believes Tice is still alive. There had been hope Tice would be found among the thousands of people released from prisons in Damascus.
Published at Thu, 19 Dec 2024 13:36:34 +0000
