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(NEXSTAR) — Luigi Mangione has been charged with execution arsenic an enactment of coercion successful the sidesplitting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, authorities announced connected Tuesday.
A New York State Supreme Court indictment has charged Mangione, 26, with 1 number of execution successful the archetypal degree, successful furtherance of terrorism; 2 counts of execution successful the 2nd degree, 1 of which is charged arsenic sidesplitting arsenic an enactment of terrorism; and aggregate counts of transgression possession of a weapon.
Mangione had antecedently been charged with execution successful Thompson's killing, but the panic allegation is new.
Under New York law, specified a complaint tin beryllium brought erstwhile an alleged transgression is “intended to intimidate oregon coerce a civilian population, power the policies of a portion of authorities by intimidation oregon coercion and impact the behaviour of a portion of authorities by murder, assassination oregon kidnapping.”
Mangione’s New York lawyer has not commented connected the case.
Thompson, 50, was changeable dormant arsenic helium walked to a Manhattan edifice wherever Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare — the United States' biggest aesculapian insurer — was holding an capitalist conference.
“This was a frightening, well-planned, targeted execution that was intended to origin daze and attraction and intimidation,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Tuesday. “It occurred successful 1 of the astir bustling parts of our city, threatened the information of section residents and tourists alike, commuters and businesspeople conscionable starting retired connected their day.”
After days of aggravated constabulary searches and publicity, Mangione was arrested connected Dec. 9 aft being spotted successful a McDonald's successful Altoona, Pennsylvania. New York constabulary officials person said Mangione was carrying the gun used to termination Thompson, a passport and assorted fake IDs, including 1 that the suspected shooter presented to cheque into a New York hostel.
The 26-year-old was charged with Pennsylvania weapon and forgery offenses and locked up determination without bail. His Pennsylvania lawyer has questioned the grounds for the forgery complaint and the ineligible grounding for the weapon charge. The lawyer besides has said Mangione would fight extradition to New York.
Mangione has 2 tribunal hearings scheduled for Thursday successful Pennsylvania, including an extradition hearing, Bragg noted.
Hours aft his arrest, the Manhattan territory attorney’s bureau filed paperwork charging him with execution and different offenses. The indictment builds connected that paperwork.
Investigators’ moving mentation is that Mangione, an Ivy League machine subject grad from a salient Maryland family, was propelled by choler astatine the U.S. wellness attraction system. A instrumentality enforcement bulletin obtained by The Associated Press said that erstwhile arrested, helium was carrying a handwritten missive that called wellness security companies “parasitic” and complained astir firm greed.
Mangione repeatedly posted connected societal media about however spinal country past twelvemonth had eased his chronic backmost pain, encouraging radical with akin conditions to talk up for themselves if told they conscionable had to unrecorded with it.
In a Reddit station successful precocious April, helium advised idiosyncratic with a backmost occupation to question further opinions from surgeons and, if necessary, accidental the symptom made it intolerable to work.
“We unrecorded successful a capitalist society,” Mangione wrote. “I’ve recovered that the aesculapian manufacture responds to these cardinal words acold much urgently than you describing unbearable symptom and however it’s impacting your prime of life.”
He was never a UnitedHealthcare client, according to the insurer.
Mangione seemingly chopped himself disconnected from his household and adjacent friends successful caller months. His family reported him missing to San Francisco authorities successful November.
Thompson, who grew up connected a workplace successful small-town Iowa, was trained arsenic an accountant. A joined begetter of 2 high-schoolers, helium had worked astatine the elephantine UnitedHealth Group for 20 years and became CEO of its security limb successful 2021.
His sidesplitting kindled a fiery outpouring of resentment toward U.S. wellness security companies, arsenic Americans swapped stories online and elsewhere of being denied coverage, near successful limbo arsenic doctors and insurers disagreed, and stuck with sizeable bills.
The shooting also rattled C-suites, arsenic “wanted” posters with different wellness attraction executives’ names and faces appeared connected New York streets and an outpouring of online vitriol prompted constabulary to pass that determination could beryllium an “elevated threat.”
The Associated Press contributed to this processing report.
