Luigi Mangione was charged with murder in New York for the fatal shooting of UnitedHealth Group Inc. executive Brian Thompson after a five-day manhunt over the killing.
The 26-year-old Maryland native was apprehended earlier Monday in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and held on five counts, including gun charges. New York is now expected to seek his return to face murder charges over the shooting.
The New York District Attorney’s office said a warrant for Mangione’s arrest had been issued and a complaint against him remained under seal in the state. In New York, he faces charges for murder, criminal possession of a weapon and possession of a forged document.
Details on a lawyer for Mangione were not immediately available.
New York will have to now seek his return from Pennsylvania through a legal process known as extradition, which could take days.
Thompson, 50, was gunned down in the early morning of Dec. 4 outside a Hilton hotel in what New York City Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch called a “brazen, targeted” attack as he walked to UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference.
Police said the gunman fled the scene into Central Park on a bicycle, and later left the city via a bus station at the George Washington Bridge.
Earlier Monday, Mangione appeared in court in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania for a preliminary arraignment on charges in that state, including forgery, carrying a gun without a license and showing law enforcement false identification, according to a criminal complaint released by the Pennsylvania court system.
Officers said Mangione was carrying multiple fake identification cards and a US passport, as well as a “suppressor,” which they said was “consistent with the weapon used in the murder.”
Among Mangione’s belongings was also a handwritten three-page manifesto decrying the healthcare industry’s profit motives, according to authorities. The slaying of Thompson comes amid an intensifying groundswell of anger against the for-profit insurance industry.
In New York, a conviction for second-degree murder carries a sentence ranging from 15 to 25 years to life in prison. The charge is a Class-A felony, the most serious type of crime under New York state law, and is defined as an intentional killing that shows “depraved indifference to human life.”
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