UnitedHealthcare killing suspect Luigi Mangione indicted on death penalty-eligible charges

NEW YORK AP Luigi Mangione was indicted Thursday on a federal murder charge in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson a necessary step for prosecutors to seek the death penalty The indictment returned by a grand jury in Manhattan federal court also charges Mangione with two counts of stalking and a firearms count It was not directly clear when the -year-old Mangione will be arraigned A message seeking comment was left for a spokesperson for his lawyers Mangione an Ivy League graduate from a prominent Maryland real estate family also faces separate state murder charges He s accused of shooting Thompson in the back outside a Manhattan hotel on Dec as the executive arrived for UnitedHealthcare s annual investor conference U S Attorney General Pam Bondi publicized this month that she had directed federal prosecutors in Manhattan to seek the death penalty following through on the president s campaign promise to vigorously pursue capital punishment It s the first death penalty situation sought by the Justice Department since President Donald Trump returned to office in January with a vow to resume federal executions after they were halted under the previous administration The killing and ensuing five-day manhunt leading to Mangione s arrest rattled the business public with certain vitality insurers hastily switching to remote work or online shareholder meetings It also galvanized strength insurance critics a few of whom have rallied around Mangione as a stand-in for frustrations over coverage denials and hefty therapeutic bills Surveillance video proved a masked gunman shooting Thompson from behind Police say the words delay deny and depose were scrawled on the ammunition mimicking a phrase commonly used to describe how insurers avoid paying indicates