‘There is not and was no other weapon’: Mangione’s team says double jeopardy prevents murder trial

Lawyers for Luigi Mangione continued Friday to push for the dismissal of his murder and weapons case in state court, arguing that his guilty plea to federal stalking charges two months ago precludes a separate trial.

Mangione, the admitted killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court in August. The plea sparked a long battle over the future of prosecution in a separate state court for second-degree murder and weapons possession.

His trial, which was scheduled to begin September 18, was postponed indefinitely so the court could determine whether double jeopardy applies. A decision on the dismissal request is expected on December 10.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office maintains the case can be legally prosecuted because its charges differ significantly from those in the federal court case, which centered on stalking and crossing state lines and cyberstalking through the use of interstate facilities, each resulting in death. The state indictment is a classic murder case, prosecutors argued, and murder is not generally defined by federal laws.

Mangione’s team countered Friday that the charges in the two cases were essentially the same. They told New York Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro that the federal offenses to which Mangione pleaded guilty, interstate harassment resulting in death, involved overlapping legal elements.

“Here, Mangione was charged by the federal grand jury with possessing the same firearm at the same time and place as those people are accusing here,” Mangione’s attorneys, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, Marc Agnifilo and Jacob Kaplan, argued in a letter to the court. “There is not and was no other weapon.”

Mangione faces a possible life sentence when he returns to federal court on Dec. 18. If the case continues, he faces a maximum of 25 years to life in prison.

State prosecutors must overcome New York state’s double jeopardy law, which requires distinct “evils” between the two cases for the case to proceed, legal experts told NBC News. Mangione’s lawyers say the harms cited in the state and federal cases are the same.

“There is no basis for finding such a difference, let alone one large enough to fit within the narrow legal exception,” they wrote in their most recent brief.

Earlier this month, Bragg’s office highlighted a double jeopardy exception that could give him a path forward if Carro finds there were unique “elements” charged in the state’s case.

Lead prosecutor Joel Seidemann argued in a filing that previous litigation in the federal proceeding showed the state’s charges were materially different. U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett determined that the harassment could not be considered violent under the law, a decision that led to the dismissal of two counts that would have made Mangione eligible for the death penalty. The Justice Department had announced its intention to seek the death penalty before Garnett’s decision.

Mangione admitted to using a 3D-printed gun to shoot Thompson outside the downtown Hilton early on Dec. 4, 2024, as the executive was walking from his nearby hotel to his company’s investor conference.

The gunman ambushed Thompson, a father of two from Minnesota, shooting multiple times before fleeing and sparking an interstate manhunt. He was arrested five days later in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after customers recognized him at a McDonald’s from photos released by New York police.

The Maryland native, Ivy League-educated and from a prominent family, testified in federal court that he was motivated by a personal grievance with the health insurance industry. Investigators said he was never a UnitedHealthcare policyholder.

His lawyers argued that the notoriety of the case led to excessive prosecution, with state and federal officials seeking credit by pursuing separate cases over the same event.