Luigi Mangione's lawyers zero in on his final 30 minutes of freedom to argue police made a mistake
Curtis Means/Pool Photo via AP
- Luigi Mangione was arrested three months ago amid a tense 30 minutes at a Pennsylvania McDonald's.
- What police in Altoona did in that time is now the subject of a defense evidence-suppression effort.
- At stake is whether a gun, writings, and electronics seized at the restaurant can be used at trial.
A "red notebook manifesto." A "9 mm black Ghost handgun." A "Macbook Pro laptop." And a "USB on necklace."
The story of Luigi Mangione and the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has been quiet in recent weeks, save for some quickly debunked news of "sex tapes" ("fake and not Luigi," a defense lawyer has said) and the continual background whir of speculation on Reddit.
But behind the scenes, as the murder suspect waits in a Brooklyn jail for his next court date, in June, a battle is brewing over the evidence vouchered from his arrest.
Police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, spent 30 minutes questioning and searching Mangione in a local McDonald's on a Monday morning three months ago before escorting him out in handcuffs. They later created an inventory listing 27 line items of property seized from his person, pockets, and backpack.
Pennsylvania State Police
That 30-minute interaction inside the restaurant, preserved by the body-worn camera of at least one of 10 officers present, is now the subject of minute-by-minute scrutiny from his defense lawyers.
The lawyers are looking for procedural errors that could cause judges in Pennsylvania and New York to "suppress" everything Mangione had with him at the McDonald's. Prosecutors could be barred from using any of the seized property as evidence at trial.
"We are concerned that Luigi's constitutional rights were violated in Pennsylvania," his lead attorney in New York, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, told reporters after Mangione's most recent court date, on February 21 in federal court in Manhattan.
"And there are serious search and seizure issues that will be litigated in that case in Pennsylvania and in this case here," she added.
Unlikely to prevail
Suppression may be a long shot.
Business Insider asked defense attorneys and former prosecutors to review a pretrial motion filed in Pennsylvania three weeks ago. Filed by the Altoona defense attorney Tom Dickey, it claims the 27 pieces of property in the police inventory were "obtained illegally and unlawfully."
These legal experts said nothing seemed amiss in Dickey's detailed account of how Altoona police surrounded, questioned, and arrested Mangione after a five-day multistate search.
"They're unlikely to prevail, in my view," said Gary Galperin, who was a prosecutor with the Manhattan district attorney's office for 42 years and now teaches classes on evidence and forensic psychiatry at the Cardozo School of Law.
"Everything they did was absolutely reasonable," said the New York City defense attorney Ikiesha Al-Shabazz, a former narcotics prosecutor who teaches at the St. John's University School of Law.
"Good luck with that," she said of the suppression effort. "I don't see that happening."
The Court of Common Pleas of Blair County, Pennsylvania
Despite any long odds, challenging how the police approach, question, and arrest a suspect is a fundamental, Defense 101 obligation — every criminal lawyer worth her salt will make a thorough go of it.
"This is just standard — whether it's going to work, they have to do it," Al-Shabazz said. "It's their job to make applications, and challenge the evidence, and ultimately put the prosecution to their burden."
Suppression efforts are especially vital in a case like Mangione's, where the stakes are sky-high.
In Pennsylvania, the 26-year-old Maryland native faces comparatively minor felonies of firearm possession and forgery stemming from the arrest itself.
His New York charges are far more serious. Manhattan's state-level district attorney, Alvin Bragg, has charged Mangione with murder in furtherance of an act of terrorism, which could lead to a life-without-parole sentence. In a separate federal case, the top murder charge is death penalty-eligible.
A gun and a 'manifesto'
Another reason Mangione's defense will fight a pitched suppression battle is the importance of what the software developer had with him when he was arrested.
Altoona police allege that as he sat in McDonald's at 9 a.m. on that Monday — with one end of his paper COVID-19 mask lowered to allow a bite of hash brown — Mangione carried a black backpack that was a veritable "how to prosecute me" tool kit.
Deep inside the bag was a 9 mm handgun with a metal barrel and a 3D printed lower receiver, the part that contains the trigger and pistol grip. There was a separate silencer, also 3D printed, police say.
NYPD officials say this hybrid, part metal, part plastic "ghost" gun is a ballistic match to the shell casings left on the sidewalk when Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two from Minnesota, was fatally shot as he walked to a UnitedHealthcare convention at a midtown Manhattan hotel.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
The shells had the words "deny," "defend," and "depose" written on them, apparent references to what critics say are the delay tactics health insurance companies can use to stall paying claims.
The backpack also contained the red spiral notebook that Altoona police called a "manifesto" in their inventory — a word the Pennsylvania lawyer is now challenging.
Mangione's federal complaint alleges the notebook's handwritten pages "express hostility towards the health insurance industry and wealthy executives in particular."
An entry dated six weeks prior to Thompson's murder "describes an intent to 'wack' the CEO of one of the insurance companies at its investor conference."
Given the death penalty stakes and the heft of the evidence, suppression is a shot worth taking, said defense attorney Michael Scotto, a former rackets bureau chief at the Manhattan DA's office.
If a Pennsylvania judge finds the property seized from Mangione by Altoona police is inadmissible, that decision would be binding on the state judge in New York, he said.
Convincing a federal judge to suppress will be harder still.
"Federal law generally affords less rights to the suspect than state law," Scotto said. "So if the search was proper under Pennsylvania law, that should basically be the end of it."
Altoona Police Department
The defense motion provides an almost cinematic look at Mangione's last half-hour of freedom.
Mangione was sitting in a corner of the McDonald's when the first two officers — each of them "uniformed, armed, and fully equipped" — entered and stood at his side, "resulting in the formation of a human law enforcement wall," Dickey's filing said.
The police did not tell Mangione he was free to leave, and gave a false reason for being there, saying he "looked suspicious" and had "over-stayed his welcome," the filing alleged.
He was told to show his ID and to stand with his hands on his head. He was then frisked, "although no circumstances existed at that time justifying said action," the filing alleged.
There was plenty of probable cause to detain and question Mangione at this point, legal experts told BI. Mangione's face had been online and on TV for days.
"He's like a rock star — everyone knows him," said Scotto. "So if somebody spots the guy at McDonald's, then the police are obviously going to come in and take defensive positions around him."
Police are also within their rights to ask what are called "investigatory" questions — such as "What is your name?" and "Where are you from?" and "What's in the backpack?" — prior to Mirandizing a suspect.
The Pennsylvania defense filing describes a series of what are all permissible police actions, legal experts said — including any lies told about his overstaying his welcome.
"They're not obligated to explain anything to him," said Al-Shabazz. "They are allowed to lie."
According to the suppression motion, two officers continued to "interrogate and question" Mangione, asking if a nearby backpack, plastic bag and other items were his. One officer left briefly to run his New Jersey ID, which police would later say was fake.
Some 17 minutes passed — and nearly a dozen officers were present — by the time Mangione was read his Miranda rights. He shook his head "no" when asked if he wished to speak to the police, the defense filing said.
After more questioning and another pat-down, "he was then placed in handcuffs and was informed that he was being detained" and was "physically removed from the McDonalds."
There was probable cause for this arrest, legal experts said: the allegedly false Jersey ID.
No guns were drawn
The police who stayed behind then took a look through his belongings — what the filing alleges was an illegal search.
"During the search of the backpack, the Altoona Police uncovered a clip wrapped up in underwear and other items," the filing said, referring to evidence later inventoried as a magazine holding 12 rounds, including 3 hollow-points.
A computer chip was found wrapped in duct tape that one officer removed using a knife, "without a valid search warrant."
Mangione's bags were taken to the police department, where a continued search of the backpack revealed the gun, the "manifesto," and everything else on the inventory.
"They searched it as part of the arrest process, as part of securing his property — they don't need a warrant for that," said Scotto.
"And this wasn't just picking him up for jaywalking. What if he had a bomb in that bag?" the former prosecutor added. "And you know, by the way, it's not like they came at him with guns drawn."
Steven Hirsch/New York Post via AP, Pool
Dickey is also seeking to suppress everything Mangione told police. A judge may disallow anything Mangione said in response to police questioning after he was Mirandized, Al-Shabazz said.
Dickey and Blair County, Pennsylvania, prosecutors did not respond to requests for comment. It's unclear when a judge in Pennsylvania will rule; prosecutors would first need to file a response.
Friedman Agnifilo declined to say when she may file her own evidence-suppression motions in Mangione's state and federal cases in New York.
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