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THE STATE MURDER trial of Luigi Mangione, who admitted to gunning down a US health insurance executive, will be postponed following his guilty plea in a federal case, according to a judge’s order filed Monday.
His trial on charges of murdering UnitedHealthCare chief executive Brian Thompson was due to get underway next month, but that prospect was upended when he pleaded guilty in federal court on Friday and his lawyers moved to have the state charges dismissed.
He had been facing the stalking charges in the federal system, alongside murder charges in the state system.
Reading his statement on Friday, Mangione told judge Margaret M. Garnett: “I shot Mr Thompson in Manhattan,” adding: “I understood that my actions would place him in fear of death or bodily injury. I knew what I was doing was illegal.”
Mangione pleaded guilty to two charges: one count of interstate stalking resulting in death, which carries a maximum potential sentence of life in prison, and one count of stalking through use of interstate facilities resulting in death. That charge also carries a maximum of life.
The judge accepted his guilty plea.
She also explained to Mangione that the maximum sentence he can receive is life in prison on each of the two counts.
Addressing reporters after Friday’s hearing, Mangione’s lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo said that her client had been “unfairly treated since the outset in every way”
She referred to the federal trial in New York and the state trial, which were “trying to punish him twice for the exact conduct”.
“He has been treated differently than every other defendant charged with this offence… thankfully, New York law does not allow this,” she said.
Referring to the double jeopardy protection, which ensures someone isn’t tried twice for the same crime, she said that today’s guilty plea “triggers this statute”.
She said that their legal team had filed a motion in state court explaining why the state’s charges must be dismissed under New York’s double jeopardy protections.
Under New York law, a state prosecution could be barred if the federal case is resolved first, but it isn’t automatic.
The state’s double jeopardy protections kick in if a jury has been sworn in a prior prosecution, such as a federal case, or if that prosecution ends in a guilty plea.
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