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By Julio-Cesar Chavez and Wealthy McKay
ALTOONA, Pennsylvania (Reuters) -The 26-year-old man accused of gunning down UnitedHealth govt Brian Thompson in Manhattan intends to combat his extradition to New York to face homicide prices from Pennsylvania, the place he was arrested, his protection lawyer informed a decide at a listening to on Tuesday.
The suspect, Luigi Mangione, was additionally denied bail for the second time, a day after he was taken into custody at a quick meals restaurant after a sprawling five-day manhunt.
As he entered the courthouse surrounded by officers, Mangione shouted within the course of journalists, yelling partially, “…utterly out of contact and an insult to the intelligence of the American folks!” It was not clear to what he was referring.
Mangione’s refusal to waive extradition on Tuesday triggers a proper course of that might final weeks, although he’s unlikely to achieve stopping his eventual switch, in accordance with authorized specialists.
Investigators have been making an attempt to retrace Mangione’s actions in Pennsylvania over the previous few days, in addition to whether or not the suspect was helped by an confederate both earlier than or after the brazen capturing outdoors a midtown resort.
Mangione was noticed at a McDonald’s (NYSE:) on Monday by an worker who thought he regarded just like the gunman in surveillance pictures launched by police. A gun, clothes and faux identifications present in his possession all carefully match these utilized by the shooter, police mentioned.
He faces gun and forgery prices in Pennsylvania and was arraigned in Altoona on Monday. An arrest warrant for Mangione filed on Tuesday in Manhattan legal court docket listed one rely of second-degree homicide, three counts of legal possession of a weapon, and one rely of legal possession of a cast instrument.
Whereas the gunman’s motive stays unclear, police have mentioned Thompson, the CEO of one of many nation’s largest well being insurers, was intentionally focused.
Mangione suffered from power again ache that restricted his every day life, in accordance with a number of information accounts. His profile on X exhibits a background picture of an x-ray with what seems to be screws and plates inserted in a decrease again.
An worker at TrueCar (NASDAQ:) mentioned Mangione labored on the automotive shopping for web site as an information engineer from 2022 to late 2023. In mid-2023, Mangione took about two months off for what the worker’s supervisor described as back-related points.
The worker, who requested to not be named, described Mangione as “extremely good” and really pleasant to his co-workers.
He mentioned that the corporate supplied workers medical health insurance via UnitedHealth in addition to different selections, reminiscent of Aetna.
From January via June 2022, Mangione lived on the Surfbreak co-living neighborhood, much like an grownup dormitory, the place he led a e-book membership and surfed, hiked and rock-climbed, in accordance with the Hawaiian on-line information web site Civil Beat and different media.
The founding father of the group, R.J. Martin, mentioned Mangione’s ache lingered for years, attributable to misaligned vertebrae that will pinch Mangione’s spinal twine, and he left for the mainland in some unspecified time in the future for surgical procedure.
However he went “radio silent” in June or July, Martin informed Civil Beat.
At one level, Mangione steered the group’s e-book membership learn the manifesto of Ted Kaczynski – the Unabomber – as a joke, Martin mentioned.
Mangione, when arrested, was in possession of his personal manifesto that supplied perception into his motives, in accordance with police. The New York Occasions (NYSE:) reported that an inside New York Metropolis Police report analyzing the handwritten doc concluded that Mangione considered the killing as a problem to the healthcare business’s corruption.
GHOST GUN, BRAZEN ESCAPE
Mangione, an Ivy League graduate who was additionally the valedictorian of a non-public all-boys college in Maryland, had a loaded ghost gun – a firearm assembled from components, making it untraceable – and a silencer, officers mentioned on Monday. Each the weapon and his clothes carefully resembled these utilized by the gunman.
He additionally had a big sum of money and a number of pretend identifications, together with a fraudulent New Jersey ID that matched the one utilized by the gunman to test right into a Manhattan hostel days earlier than the capturing, in accordance with authorities.
Mangione’s household launched an announcement saying they knew solely what had been reported within the media.
“Our household is shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest,” the household mentioned in an announcement posted to the X account of Maryland lawmaker Nino Mangione. “We provide our prayers to the household of Brian Thompson and we ask folks to wish for all concerned.”
The gunman managed to elude seize for days after the assault final Wednesday outdoors the Hilton resort in midtown Manhattan.
After mendacity in look forward to Thompson, the masked suspect shot him within the again earlier than fleeing on foot, using a bicycle into Central Park and finally making his solution to a bus station in northern Manhattan, the place police consider he boarded a bus and left the town.
The phrases “deny,” “defend” and “depose” have been carved into shell casings discovered on the scene, a number of information retailers have reported. The phrases evoke the title of a 2010 e-book essential of the insurance coverage business, “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance coverage Corporations Do not Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.”
Thompson’s homicide unleashed a wave of frustration from People struggling to afford medical care and those that have been denied claims or care.
Thompson, a father of two, had been CEO of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:)’s insurance coverage unit since April 2021, a part of a 20-year profession with the corporate. He had been in New York to attend the corporate’s annual investor convention.
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