Source : Perth Now news
The person who is accused of fatally shooting the UnitedHealthcare CEO has entered a not-guilty plea to express crime and terror charges, while his lawyer argued that statements made by New York’s governor would make it difficult to get a fair test.
Luigi Mangione, 26, leaped over a camera to provide his appeal, and he was shackled and seated in a Manhattan judge.
In a state event that will work concurrent to his federal prosecutors, the Manhattan district attorney officially charged him with multiple counts of crime, including death as an act of terrorism, next month.
Federal prosecutors who filed their own charges against him were pre-empted by him for his first appearance in New York’s position trial jury.
The maximum sentence for the state claims is living in prison without the possibility of the death sentence, while the federal charges have the potential to carry the death penalty.
The two cases, according to the prosecution, will continue on parallel lines, with the state claims expected to go to test first.
One of Mangione’s attorneys claimed that government authorities, including New York Mayor Eric Adams, have fabricated his identity, stripping him of his legal standing as a accused, and tarnishing the jury selection process.
” I am really anxious about my employer’s right to a good trial”, said Karen Friedman Agnifilo.
When Mangione was flown to a Manhattan airport and quietly escorted up a wharf after being extradited from Pennsylvania, the state’s governor and leading police officer were among a gathered of greatly armed soldiers last Thursday.
The governor told a local Screen place,” I wanted to look him in the eye and say that you carried out this violent act in my city, the city that the people of New York love.”
Federal and state prosecutors have been accused of advancing contradictory legitimate theories, according to Friedman Agnifilo, calling their approach complicated and unusual.
” He is being treated like a human ping-pong game between fighting states around”, she said Monday.
Judge Gregory Carro of the state trial court said he could assure Mangione’s fair trial, but that he had little power over what transpired in the court.
On December 4, Mangione allegedly shot and killed Brian Thompson as he was walking to an investment meeting in downtown Manhattan.
After a five-day research, Mangione was found in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s with a fake Card and a gun that matched the one used in the shooting, according to the authorities.
Federal prosecutors claim that he was also carrying a notebook in which he criticized powerful executives and the health insurance sector.
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg stated at a press conference last week that the state charges were intended to “fear, interest, and coercion” because the violence law’s program reflected the severity of the “frightening, well-planned, targeted murder.”
” In its most basic terms, this was a killing that was intended to evoke terror”, he added.
Mangione is being held in a Brooklyn federal jail alongside several other high-profile defendants, including Sean” Diddy” Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried.
Outside the courthouse where Mangione appeared Monday, a few dozen supporters chanted,” Free Luigi”, over the blare of a trumpet.
Natalie Monarrez, a 55-year-old Staten Island resident, claimed she joined the demonstration because she lost both her mother and her life savings as a result of insurance claims that were denied.
” As extreme as it was, it jolted the conversation that we need to deal with this issue”, she said of the shooting.
” Enough is enough, people are fed up”.
Thompson, a married father of two high-schoolers, had worked at the giant UnitedHealth Group for 20 years and became CEO of its insurance arm in 2021.
Some people have spoken out their anger toward US health insurers as a result of the killing, with Mangione serving as a stand-in for complaints about coverage denials and high medical bills.
Additionally, it has rattling executives who claim to have experienced a spike in threats have been shocked by the corporate world.
