Fundraising to finance his legal fees is increasing. Sales of the jacket and backpack he wore before his arrest soar. McDonald's employees who reported him to the police received death threats. And his fellow prisoners in prison demand his release.
“Free Luigi!” His conditions of detention are appalling! » At Huntingdon Prison, the oldest penitentiary in Pennsylvania, Luigi Mangione already has fans: his fellow inmates. The day before yesterday, they shouted their support through the bars of their cell to a reporter from the cable channel NewsNation stationed outside. They followed the program on their television set and answered the journalist's questions live. We thus learned that Luigi is currently languishing alone in an 8 square meter cell equipped with a bed, a small window opening onto the outside, a sink, a table with stool, a toilet, but without television. He has been eating regularly since his arrest, three times a day. The menu consists of fruit, oatmeal, scrambled eggs and porcupine meatballs for lunch. “It’s disgusting! », shouted the detainees to the channel's reporter. Undoubtedly a great moment of television… But which shows to what extent “Luigimania” turns into an obsession.
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Accusing signs
Friday in New York, the faces of health insurance company bosses appeared on signs with the words “Wanted”. They were stuck to the posts by activists supporting the suspect's cause. Mangione's khaki-colored Levy's jacket (200 euros) was a hit on the shelves, as was his light gray backpack (more than 250 euros), branded Peak Design. The boss of this high-end brand told the New York Times yesterday that he had received death threats. His crime, in the eyes of “Luigi fans”: having called the police after recognizing the model. McDonald's employees who reported the suspect to the local police station in Altoona, Pennsylvania, leading to his arrest, received the same treatment. Which means they are now followed 24 hours a day by bodyguards.
« Luigi Mangione for President »
And it's not over, because soon, the saga will be played out in the courts. Hence the fundraising that is multiplying online to pay his legal fees. Friday evening, on the GiveSendGo site, a “legal fund” had already raised nearly $100,000 ($91,124 to be exact) and set itself the goal of reaching the $200,000 mark. More folkloric, a “political fund” entitled “Luigi Mangione for 50th President”, had only raised 15 dollars but was aiming for 10 million to finance the suspect’s presidential campaign in… 2036.
In the meantime, Luigi Mangione, facing five charges including “second degree murder”, should soon be transferred to New York where the assassination took place. He will be defended by a star of the bar, the famous lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo. “She knows all the judges, all the corridors and all the court clerks,” a magistrate who worked alongside her at the New York court where she worked for a long time told CNN. She was then one of the deputies of Cyrus Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney.
She will have a lot to do to defend her client. The police indeed have a file that seems concrete. The DNA found on the water bottle and protein bar packaging picked up near the crime scene is identical to that of the suspect. The shell casings found at the crime scene matched those of Luigi Mangione's homemade (and undetectable) firearm found during his arrest. The police also have a three-page handwritten manifesto, in which he “apologizes” for his acts of violence, “but frankly these parasites did everything to make this happen,” he writes. They also have a spiral notebook detailing the time and location of the investor conference that Brian Thompson was scheduled to attend on the day of his assassination. So many incriminating elements that risk costing Luigi Mangione, the new “Robin Hood” of modern times, dearly.
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By Olivier O'Mahony, in New York
