Luigi Mangione pleads guilty to causing UnitedHealthcare CEO’s death in federal case

Plea comes weeks before separate case is scheduled to start in New York, and could throw proceedings into disarray

‘I shot Mr Thompson’: Luigi Mangione describes his planning and the killing of health insurance CEO

Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty on Friday in a federal case in relation to the killing of UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson in 2024.

Mangione confessed that he shot and killed Thompson outside a New York City hotel on 4 December 2024. In his federal case, he faced stalking charges, after other charges, including murder, were dropped.

“I shot Mr Thompson in Manhattan and he died,” Mangione said towards the end of a hastily scheduled, 45-minute hearing. He added: “I knew what I was doing was illegal” but did not say that what he did was wrong or that he had any regrets.

The judge, Margaret Garnett, scheduled his sentencing for 18 December. Mangione’s federal trial had been due to begin next year but will not now happen, while state charges against him were still in the balance on Friday afternoon.

In the separate state case, Manhattan prosecutors have charged Mangione with murder and weapons counts and that trial is scheduled for 8 September. He had previously pleaded not guilty in both cases.

Within minutes of the guilty plea to stalking charges in the federal case and his admissions in court on Friday morning, Mangione’s defense lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said she had filed a motion to dismiss the state murder case against him. Federal prosecutor Jamie McDonald told the court the government would seek life imprisonment for the killer.

Maryland-born Mangione, 28, came into court on Friday morning in beige jail scrubs with his ankles shackled, a change from recent appearances where he was in a jacket and shirt. He had been brought to the Manhattan courthouse from custody in Brooklyn. Relatives of Thompson were in court in a rare occurrence, sitting in the front row, and some of the family members began crying as Mangione told the judge what he had done.

Among the relatives in court was Brian Thompson’s widow, Paulette Thompson, who was breathing heavily and grasping a loved one’s arm as Mangione described shooting her husband on a busy city sidewalk. Other family members held each other’s hands.

Mangione told the court that “after years of enduring severe pain from a broken back, navigating the obstacles of the health insurance system and witnessing similar experiences of countless others”, he learned that UnitedHealthcare would be holding its annual investor conference in December 2024.

The location was not public but he traveled to New York City and emailed UnitedHealthcare leadership, posing as an institutional investor, to get more information, getting a response within an hour.

He also researched who would be attending. Mangione then said he printed a gun with a 3D printer and affixed it with a silencer. “I shot Mr Thompson in Manhattan and he died,” he said. “When I did so, I understood that my actions would place him in fear of death or serious bodily injury. I knew what I was doing was illegal.”

There were gasps in court as the prosecution described how Brian Thompson was probably aware of what had happened to him as he turned to face his killer between the first and second bullets hitting him, as Mangione stood in the street with his gun raised.

The judge said earlier that Mangione was in a fit state to plead. He was asked a series of questions.

Mangione’s case has drawn extensive global attention as Thompson’s death spurred intense discussion about the US’s heavily criticized for-profit healthcare system. The attention has also been fueled by Mangione’s rise to virtual folk-hero status among some of his supporters, although there were almost none of the most vocal fans, dubbed “Mangionistas”, outside the courthouse on Friday, as there had been for previous hearings.

Mangione’s decision to plead guilty in the federal trial came after days of intense speculation that his case would resolve before a trial. Mere hours after a final pre-trial conference in his state case, federal prosecutors and his defense had submitted a joint letter requesting a proceeding.

New York double jeopardy law could now preclude the state case from going ahead.

Under New York state law, “a person may not be twice prosecuted for the same offense” and “a person may not be separately prosecuted for two offenses based upon the same act or criminal transaction”. A state appeals court decision points out, however, that these statements precede the word “unless”, with a list of exceptions.

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Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on 9 December 2024 after a dramatic search to find Thompson’s killer. Mangione in April 2025 pleaded not guilty to federal charges that he stalked and murdered Thompson.

Not long after Mangione’s arrest, Pam Bondi, then the US attorney general, announced that she would instruct prosecutors to seek the death penalty. She said that Thompson’s killing was a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America”.

Bondi also said that her position was aligned with “Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again”.

But Garnett on 30 January threw out two of the four counts in Mangione’s federal indictment including the death penalty-eligible charge of murder through use of a firearm, meaning this punishment was off the table. Garnett said that US supreme court precedents made the murder charge “incompatible” with the two stalking charges.

“This case will proceed to trial on counts one and two, which charge the defendant with causing Brian Thompson’s death under two federal stalking laws,” Garnett said in her order. “The potential maximum punishment for each of those offenses is life in prison without parole.”

Defense attorney Friedman Agnifilo said that Mangione took full responsibility for Thompson’s death. She added, about his experience with the insurance giant UnitedHealthcare: “Like the thousands of people who have reached out since this tragedy to share their own experiences, he believed that the system had failed him and destroyed his life.”

Brian Thompson’s family issued a statement saying that the “guilty plea marks an important step toward justice for Brian and for our family. While nothing will ease the pain of losing him, we are grateful that the federal justice system has held the person responsible for this heinous act accountable.”

McDonald, the prosecutor, said that there could be no celebrity in assassination and any person encouraging or excusing actions like Mangione’s was “fundamentally wrong”.

“Violence is not a legitimate instrument to promote any political or social message,” he said.