Luigi Mangione is due to appear in court accused of murdering a healthcare chief executive – as prosecutors formally confirmed they plan to seek the death penalty for him.
The 26-year-old is scheduled to appear in Manhattan federal court later today for an arraignment over the killing in New York last year.
He has pleaded not guilty to a separate New York state indictment he faces over the murder of Brian Thompson, the boss of UnitedHealth’s insurance division.
While public officials condemned the killing, some Americans – and people elsewhere across the world – have lauded Mangione, saying he drew attention to steep US healthcare costs and the power of health insurers to refuse payment for some treatments.
A pedestrian walks past a mural of Luigi Mangione in east London. Pic: Reuters
In justifying their decision to seek the death penalty, prosecutors wrote in their filing that Mangione “presents a future danger because he expressed an intent to target an entire industry, and rally political and social opposition to that industry, by engaging in an act of lethal violence”.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi earlier this month announced that the Justice Department would seek the death penalty for Mangione.
Mangione’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
They have said Bondi’s announcement on 1 April was “unapologetically political” and breached government protocols for death penalty decisions.
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UnitedHealthcare chief executive officer Brian Thompson.
Pic: UnitedHealth Group/AP
If Mangione is convicted in the federal case, the jury would determine in a separate phase of the trial whether to recommend the death penalty.
Any such recommendation must be unanimous, and the judge would be required to impose it.
Mr Thompson was shot dead on 4 December outside a hotel in Midtown Manhattan, where an investor conference for the company was planned.
The killing sparked a five-day manhunt that captivated Americans.
Police officers in Altoona, Pennsylvania, found Mangione with a 9-millimetre pistol and silencer, clothing that matched the apparel worn by Thompson’s shooter in surveillance footage, and a notebook describing an intent to “wack” an insurance company CEO, according to a court filing.
