Mangione confessed that he traveled to New York with the intention of carrying out the shooting — bringing with him a gun produced with 3D-printed parts and a silencer.
“I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died,” Mangione said. “I knew what I was doing was illegal.”
Mangione entered the plea during a hearing on Aug. 14 inside the U.S. District Court house in Manhattan. The stalking charges carry a maximum of life imprisonment without parole, however, federal prosecutors suggested in court that Mangione serve a sentence of between 292 and 365 months — around 25 to 30 years — behind bars. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 18.
Moments after the hearing, however, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York James McDonald told reporters that his office “was free to seek the maximum penalty” — a life sentence — against Mangione, noting that the suspect entered the guilty plea on his own accord — and without any previously negotiated deal with his office.
“Violence is not a legitimate instrument to promote any political or social message, and those who resort to violence in an effort to advance their beliefs will be prosecuted convicted and put in jail,” McDonald said.
U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett, who will ultimately have ultimate say on Mangione’s sentence, is the judge who nixed the two charges in the 28-year-old’s indictment back in January that carried the death penalty as a maximum penalty.
The plea comes just weeks before Mangione’s state murder trial is set to begin on or about Sept. 8. Legal experts say that his defense team could move to have the state charges dismissed on account of double jeopardy, as Mangione will have already pleaded guilty to federal charges for the same incident. Outside the courthouse after the hearing, Mangione’s lead attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo alluded to this potential strategy, calling the two-pronged prosecution strategy unfair.
“He has been unfairly treated since the outset in every way,” Agnifilo said. “He has successfully fought off terrorism charges and the death penalty while also fighting at the same time two simultaneous prosecutions in two separate jurisdictions which are trying to punish him twice for the exact same conduct.”
Within hours of the hearing, Agnifilo had filed a motion to dismiss the murder and weapons possession counts in Mangione’s state case in a filing arguing that it amounted to double jeopardy.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is prosecuting Mangione in the state case, released a statement immediately following the plea that he remained “committed to seeking justice for Mr. Thompson and his family.”
Mangione, a Maryland resident, gave a detailed statement during Friday’s hearing in which he admitted to concocting and then executing the elaborate plot to shoot Thompson in front of a hotel on West 54th Street on the morning of Dec. 4, 2024.
In court Mangione framed the shooting as a response to having been previously denied claims by United HealthCare for continued treatment of painful injuries he sustained from a broken back years prior. Mangione recounted that he found information about the insurance investor conference, which he noted did not include doctors or other healthcare workers, by posing as an investor to its organizers.
“Unlike my previous interactions with insurers, I received an immediate response within an hour,” he said.
Thompson’s family attended the hearing, but said nothing to the press after the proceedings ended.
Police said Mangione was lying in wait outside the Hilton Hotel on West 54th Street off 6th Avenue at about 6:45 a.m. on Dec. 4, 2024, when he spotted Thompson, who had been scheduled to take part in an 8 a.m. investors meeting.
Mangione allegedly walked up to Thompson and opened fire, striking him in the back and thigh. EMS rushed Thompson to Mount Sinai Roosevelt Hospital, where he died a short time later.
Following an extensive, nationwide manhunt, police caught up to Mangione, who matched the suspect’s description, at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, PA five days later. A ghost gun with a suppressor, along with a three-page document in which Mangione allegedly expressed ill will to corporate America, was found in his possession.
This is a developing story; check in with amNY.com later for updates.
