Luigi Mangione wrote about plans to kill UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in his di months before the healthcare executive was gunned down in New York City last year, state prosecutors alleged in a Wednesday court filing.
Mangione, a 27-year-old who has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges in connection with the December murder, allegedly used a red notebook as a di to document his plans to kill Thompson, the court filing states. The notebook was confiscated by authorities during Mangione’s arrest in Pennsylvania after a five-day manhunt for Thompson’s killer.
“So say you want to rebel against the deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel. Do you bomb the HQ? No. Bombs=terrorism,” Mangione allegedly wrote in August 2024, the state court filing states. “Such actions appear the unjustified anger of someone who simply got sick/had bad luck and took their frustration out on the insurance industry, while recklessly endangering countless employees.”
Instead of carrying out a bombing, prosecutors allege, Mangione wrote in an entry last October that someone should “wack [sic] the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention.”
“It’s targeted, precise, and doesn’t risk innocents. Most importantly, the point is self-evident,” the di entry reads, according to the filing. “The point is made in the news headline ‘Insurance CEO killed at annual investors conference.'”
In submitting the court filing, state prosecutors were trying to justify the terrorism enhancement added to Mangione’s first-degree murder charge. Last month, Mangione’s attorney filed a motion to dismiss the New York state murder charges against him.
“If ever there were an open and shut case pointing to defendant’s guilty, this case is that case,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann wrote in the filing. “Simply put, one would be hard pressed to find a case with such overwhelming evidence of guilt as to the identity of the murderer and premeditated nature of the assassination.”
“Brian Thompson and UHC were simply symbols of the healthcare industry and what the defendant considered a deadly greed-fueled cartel,” Seidemann added in the filing.
Mangione’s attorney did not immediately return a request for comment.
Thompson, 50, was fatally shot in December by a masked gunman outside the New York Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan, hours before he was set to speak at UnitedHealth Group’s investor conference.
The shooter fled on a bike and rode into Central Park, evading capture by authorities.
Five days later, a worker at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, called the police and said they believed a masked man who matched images authorities released of the gunman. The masked man in the McDonald’s was Mangione, authorities said.
While Thompson’s death caused outcry, it also prompted a wider national conversation about the high costs of healthcare in the United States.
Mangione’s state and federal hearings in New York City regularly draw protests against the healthcare industry, with flocks of people gathering outside the courthouse calling for Mangione’s release.
The legal defense fund for Mangione has surpassed $1 million in the weeks after Attorney General Pam Bondi directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for the 27-year-old.
Mangione will next appear in court for his state charges on June 26.
