Luigi Mangione, suspected of having assassinated an American health insurance boss in revenge against this sector, was transferred Thursday to New York where he appeared for the first time before federal justice.
The transfer was carefully staged by US authorities and news channels showed the 26-year-old, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, being slowly escorted by helmeted law enforcement men with submachine guns slung over their shoulders. , after landing in New York aboard a helicopter.
The city’s mayor, Eric Adams, who heads the New York police force, accompanied the procession.
The engineering graduate, a brilliant former student from a wealthy Baltimore family, was then presented for the first time before federal judge Katharine Parker, who read him the charges, including that of using a firearm. fire to kill in early December in the heart of New York’s business district Brian Thompson, the CEO of the country’s first private health insurer, UnitedHealthcare.
Facts punishable by death or life in prison, the American Department of Justice said in a press release.
– “Terrorism” –
In the morning, Luigi Mangione appeared in a Pennsylvania state court near where he was arrested on December 9. He did not contest his transfer to New York and he arrived calmly, unlike the day after his arrest when he appeared agitated and vehement, throwing the words: “It is an insult to the intelligence of the people American”.
The federal prosecutions are now in addition to those decided by the local Manhattan prosecutor’s office, notably for murder linked to an “act of terrorism”.
Since December 4, the assassination has provoked numerous condemnations, but also a deluge of hateful comments on social networks against American health insurance programs, illustrating deep anger towards a system accused to prioritize profit over care and to unfairly refuse medical care.
Luigi Mangione received support on social networks. On Thursday, a few demonstrators made the trip to the courts where he appeared, some wearing a t-shirt with his image, or a sign proclaiming: “Health insurance practices terrorize the population”.
In a document summarizing the charges, investigators said they had no doubt that Luigi Mangione had planned his act.
In a notebook found on him during his arrest, he wrote on the date “8/15” (August 15) that “the target is insurance”, because it “checks all the boxes”. As of October 22, 2024, he adds: “1.5 months. An investor conference is a real godsend.” On the morning of December 4, Brian Thompson was scheduled to attend an investor conference.
– No accomplice –
Luigi Mangione also carried a letter with him to the authorities, in which he took care to specify that he had no accomplice.
The praise he received was condemned by the authorities, and the New York police expressed concern in an internal memo that Luigi Mangione was becoming an “example to follow”.
For American justice, “Mangione carefully planned the execution of Brian Thompson in order to launch a public debate on the health sector”.
“But it was not a debate, it was a murder,” said Manhattan federal prosecutor Edward Y. Kim.
According to investigators, Luigi Mangione traveled by bus from Atlanta to New York about ten days before the crime and checked into a hotel, using a fake driver’s license.
On December 4, he went out around 5:35 a.m. and waited for his target for an hour, in the dark of night, in front of his hotel, before shooting him in cold blood. He flees on an electric bike, then by taxi and manages to leave the city.
But five days later, the man whose partially masked face appeared on video surveillance cameras was recognized by an employee of a McDonald’s in the small rural town of Altoona, 500 km west of New York.
When the police arrived on scene, Luigi Mangione provided the same driver’s license that was used in the New York hotel and the police found on him a weapon similar to the one used to kill Brian Thompson.
