Northeast
UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect could see most serious charge downgraded: defense attorney
UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione’s “only viable chance” of success in his murder case is “some type of psychiatric defense,” according to New York-based attorney Daniel Gotlin.
Gotlin, of Gotlin & Jaffe, successfully tried a mental health defense in 2014 while representing a man accused of fatally stabbing his mother.
“My guess is they should try some kind of psychiatric defense where it mitigates his intent to do this in the hopes that instead of getting convicted of murder, he gets convicted of manslaughter,” he told Fox News Digital. “Even if he gets the maximum, which is eight to 24 years … he could still get out. You know, you may spend 15, 16 to 18 years in, but at least one day you’re going to get out.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Tuesday announced that a grand jury indicted Mangione on one count of first-degree murder, in furtherance of terrorism; two counts of second-degree murder; two counts of second-degree criminal weapons possession; four counts of third-degree criminal weapons possession; one count of fourth-degree criminal weapons possession; and one count of second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument.
COULD UNITEDHEALTHCARE CEO MURDER SUSPECT LUIGI MANGIONE FACE DEATH PENALTY?
Luigi Mangione shouts while officers restrain him as he arrives for his extradition hearing at the Blair County Courthouse in Hollidaysburg, Pa., on Dec. 10, 2024. (David Dee Delgado for Fox News Digital)
Bragg called Mangione’s alleged actions “premeditated” and “targeted” in a Tuesday statement.
Mangione faces additional charges involving the alleged murder weapon and forged identification in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested.
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Under New York law, first-degree murder charges are reserved for specific circumstances, such as the murder of a police officer or if the crime involved torture. Second-degree murder is the charge for intentional murder and still carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Luigi Mangione (Obtained by Fox News Digital)
“Anybody who thinks they’re going to win the case based on facts [is] either incompetent or just completely out of their minds,” Gotlin said. “There is no way that that could happen, not the way I see the evidence.”
Evidence collected by authorities so far includes a manifesto that Altoona, Pennsylvania, police apparently found in Mangione’s backpack when they arrested him at a McDonald’s location on Dec. 9. Officials also allege a 3D-printed gun and suppressor found on Mangione during his arrest match a description of the weapon used in Thompson’s murder.
“In my view, the only viable chance, and I’m not saying it’s a viable defense, is some type of psychiatric defense.”
Additionally, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said on Dec. 11 that police matched the gun recovered from Mangione in Pennsylvania to shell casings found outside the Hilton where Thompson was gunned down from behind on the sidewalk. They also have his fingerprints on a snack bar wrapper and a water bottle, she said.
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UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed in midtown Manhattan on Dec. 4, 2024. (Businesswire | NYPD Crimestoppers)
Mangione’s own lawyer, before she was retained, predicted an insanity defense in a CNN interview.
“It looks to me like there might be a not guilty by reason of insanity defense that they’re going to be thinking about because the evidence is going to be so overwhelming that he did what he did,” Karen Friedman Agnifilo told the outlet.
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Her office declined comment to Fox News Digital. Mangione’s Pennsylvania attorney, Thomas Dickey, has not responded to multiple requests for comment from Fox News Digital.
Luigi Mangione (Luigi Mangione/Facebook)
Still, others have suggested that the level of planning that appears to have gone into the slaying could make an insanity defense difficult.
“For example of an extreme emotional distress defense, a guy walks up to somebody on the subway and stabs somebody, then he drops the knife and stands there, and he’s got previous mental health issues. He’s hearing voices,” said Louis Gelormino, a New York City criminal defense attorney who previously represented a client who stabbed both of his parents and argued such a defense. “He’s not planning a getaway, he doesn’t have false ID, he doesn’t have a silencer on his weapon. Those are the things that show, no matter what you do, you did know what you were doing.”
Another mental health option, but not necessarily a defense, would involve arguing that Mangione is unfit to stand trial, Gelormino said. If his lawyers succeed there, he would potentially be hospitalized until he’s fit enough to go before the court and then go to trial anyway.
Luigi Mangione is led into the Blair County Courthouse for an extradition hearing on Dec. 10, 2024, in Hollidaysburg, Pa. (Jeff Swensen)
A masked gunman ambushed Thompson, who lived in Minnesota, outside a Manhattan Hilton hotel about an hour and 45 minutes before he was supposed to take part in the company’s annual shareholder conference, which had been publicly announced.
The suspect, who police believe was Mangione, checked into a hostel on the Upper West Side with a fake ID, paid cash and is believed to have escaped the Big Apple within an hour of the slaying.
The 26-year-old suspect is originally from Maryland and has recently lived in California and Hawaii. Mangione graduated valedictorian from the Gilman School, a private, all-boys high school in Baltimore, in 2016. He went on to receive his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020.
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson (AP Photo/UnitedHealth Group/File)
“Now, it seems to me that, based on what I see in this kid, he clearly had some kind of break with reality,” Gotlin said. “Based on what I see, he had everything going for him. And … I’m not a psychiatrist. I’ve done other psychiatric cases. I mean, it’s conceivable he’s developed schizophrenia or some kind of psychiatric disorder over the last several years and is completely delusional.”
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, most schizophrenia cases are diagnosed between the ages of 16 and 30, although males typically develop the condition at the earlier half of that range.
WHO IS LUIGI MANGIONE, SUSPECT IN UNITEDHEALTHCARE CEO MURDER?
UnitedHealthcare CEO slaying suspect Luigi Mangione is shown at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa., on Dec. 9, 2024. (Pennsylvania State Police)
Experts say it’s too early to speculate about a potential defense or plea deal, or even a motive for that matter, despite an alleged manifesto in the suspect’s handwriting.
“Right now is too early to make a decision on pleading him out because he may not have been of sound mind at the time of the shooting,” said Lara Yeretsian, a Los Angeles-based criminal defense attorney who has represented high-profile defendants including Michael Jackson and Scott Peterson. “What untethered thinking could have caused Luigi Mangione to go after an insurance executive? There is nothing to indicate he was denied coverage, and we know he comes from an affluent background, so money was not an issue.”
“Even though he had written a manifesto, the shooting may have been the product of a delusional and unsound mind, a defense his lawyers would have to consider before having him admit guilt,” she added.
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Boston, MA
When did Southie get richy-rich? – The Boston Globe
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Born and raised in Southie, Heather Foley has seen her neighborhood morph over the past three decades of scrubbing, renovation, and new construction for higher-income new arrivals.
But even Foley was surprised to discover that her South Boston, where kids once went to the corner to buy milk and cigarettes for parents, has emerged with the city’s second-highest average income, even ahead of Charlestown and Beacon Hill.
Her first thought?: “I gotta start being nicer to my neighbors if that’s the kind of money they’re making.”
What’s a household?
Decades ago, when “Good Will Hunting” was filmed in the neighborhood and Southie was known as a working-class area, there were more kids around and maybe just a single breadwinner in some homes.
Since then, Southie saw more two-earner households, fewer kids, and spiffier rental units where three or four roommates could contribute to a “household.” The changes, along with spillover from the adjacent, pricier Seaport, or South Boston waterfront, are factors in Census data showing more than 40 percent of Southie households earn more than $200,000 a year.
Staying put
Foley, 46, a photo shoot producer, considers herself lucky. She didn’t move out to the South Shore like many neighborhood longtimers. She’s living in a family home on a block with residents — oldtimers and newer arrivals — who aren’t flipping properties for big bucks.
Another blessing, particularly valuable this winter? She has a driveway.
As a kid, she went to church and school at Gate of Heaven, St. Brigid, and St. Peter, and jokes that she’s “so sad I didn’t buy a three-decker with my First Communion money, because I probably could have.”
Waves of gentrification
She remembers the earlier waves of newcomers, when glassy sports bars like Stats Bar & Grille muscled in among longtime restaurants like Amrheins.
But now, even the popular Stats is moving out at the end of the month. The property owner is developing a five-story, mixed-use residential building at the site.
A small silver lining
Foley notes that some of the onetime “newcomers” have been here for three decades — and in some ways, have stabilized the place. Many have raised kids, who, like her son, may return to the neighborhood as young adults (albeit splitting a rented apartment with friends). Stats, the sports bar, says it will also return to the neighborhood’s thriving food scene.
“We have a lot of great restaurants now,” Foley says, “and everyone cleans up after their dog.”
Read: These maps show Boston’s wealthiest and most populous neighborhoods — plus other key trends.
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Pittsburg, PA
As his polarizing Pitt career winds down, a banged-up Cam Corhen has saved his best for last
Connecticut
Hartford community grieves men killed in police shootings
The Hartford community is grappling with two police shootings that happened within eight days of each other. Both started off as mental health calls about someone in distress.
People came together to remember one of the men killed at a vigil on Wednesday evening.
With hands joined, a prayer for peace and comfort was spoken for the family of Everard Walker. He was having a mental health crisis when a family member called 211 on Feb.19.
Two mental health professionals from the state-operated Capitol Regional Mental Health Center requested Hartford police come with them to Walker’s apartment on Capitol Avenue.
A scuffle ensued, and police said it looked like Walker was going to stab an officer. The brief fight ended with an officer shooting and killing Walker.
The family is planning to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the city.
“All I will have now is a tombstone and the voicemails he left on my phone that I listen over and over again at night just so I can fall asleep,” Menan Walker, one of Walker’s daughters, said.
City councilman Josh Michtom (WF) is asking whether police could have acted differently.
“To me, the really concerning thing is why the police were there at all, why they went into that apartment in the way that they did, in the numbers that they did,” he said.
The president of Hartford’s police union, James Rutkauski, asked the community to hold their judgment and wait for a full investigation by the Inspector General’s office to be completed.
A different tone was taken in a statement released about another police shooting on Blue Hills Avenue on Feb. 27.
Rutkauski said the union fully supports the officer who fired at 55-year-old Steven Jones, who was holding a knife during a mental health crisis.
In part, the union’s statement says that Jones “deliberately advanced on the officer in a manner that created an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury. This was a 100% justified use of deadly force.”
The Inspector General’s office will determine if the officer was justified following an investigation.
The officer who shot Jones was the fourth to arrive on the scene. Three others tried to get him to drop the knife, even using a taser, before the shooting.
“It just feels like beyond the conduct of any one officer, we have this problem, which is that we send cops for every problem,” Michtom said. “I don’t know how you can de-escalate at the point of a gun.”
Jones died from his injuries on Tuesday.
The union’s statement went on to say that officers should not be society’s default for mental health professionals. The statement said in part, “We ask for renewed commitment from our legislators to remove police from being the vanguard of what should be a mental health professional response.”
The officers involved in both shootings are on administrative leave.
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