A Manhattan Supreme Court judge will admit the 3D-printed gun and the notebook prosecutors dubbed a manifesto that were found in Luigi Mangione’s backpack when he was arrested.
The mixed ruling concludes the evidentiary hearing ahead of Mangione’s state trial, in which he is charged with the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside the New York Midtown Hilton in Manhattan. The outcome dealt a blow to Mangione’s defense, which had sought to exclude all the contents of the backpack that police recovered during his arrest.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro did find that Pennsylvania officers violated Mangione’s rights in searching him at the Altoona McDonald’s where they arrested him, but that infraction will not affect two of the most critical pieces of evidence that police uncovered when they searched him in the station.
“Items found in the backpack at the McDonald’s should be suppressed,” Carro said. “Items recovered at the station should not be suppressed.”
That means the items that Altoona police found when they searched Mangione’s backpack at the McDonald’s must not be considered at trial — including the magazine, cellphone, passport, wallet and computer chip. However, the gun, red notebook and silencer, which were recovered after officers took Mangione and his belongings back to the police station, are fair game.
Mangione was arrested on Dec. 9, 2024, in Altoona in the midst of a massive manhunt for the person who assassinated Thompson outside of a Midtown corporate convention five days prior.
In December, prosecutors and defense attorneys scrutinized key evidence against Mangione during a multiday hearing.
Carro validated Mangione’s contention that the search of his belongings in the McDonald’s was a violation of search and seizure law that only allows officers to search bags within the defendant’s “immediate control” in order to prevent the destruction of evidence or access to a weapon.
During the hearings, members of the Altoona Police Department said they were compelled to search the backpack to make sure it didn’t contain any explosives, but they also said it was routine to search all bags in a defendant’s possession when they are arrested. Carro did not find the justification persuasive.
“The officers’ actions were inconsistent with merely performing a safety search. The area where the police searched the backpack was open to the public and to employees, both of whom passed by the area on their way to the bathrooms, and in the case of employees, to gain access to storage closets,” he wrote in his decision.
But once the officers took Mangione back to the station, Carro concluded that the inventory search that uncovered a loaded gun and a notebook was valid. Prosecutors in Mangione’s federal trial, which is scheduled to come after the state trial, have said Mangione wrote about his intent to “wack” the CEO of the insurance company at its investor conference.
The state trial is set to begin starting in September.
“We look forward to presenting our case at trial on Sept. 8,” said a spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. Mangione is also facing a separate federal trial.
