Pennsylvania prosecutors on Monday said authorities lawfully detained and collected evidence from Luigi Mangione, the suspect accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, during his December 2024 arrest in Altoona, where he allegedly fled after the crime in New York.
Mangione, 26, is charged with first-degree murder in furtherance of an act of terrorism, stalking and a slew of other state and federal charges in both New York and Pennsylvania, for allegedly gunning down Thompson, a 50-year-old married father of two, on a sidewalk in Manhattan on Dec. 4, 2024.
“The Commonwealth avers that police at all times acted within the authority bestowed by law,” the court document filed Monday states.
The document further states that Altoona law enforcement officers who responded, in uniform, to a 911 call from a local McDonald’s manager saying she saw someone in her location who “looks like the CEO shooter from New York,” followed protocol when they approached Mangione.
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“The officers had valid reasonable suspicion to support an investigatory detention to identify who Defendant-Mangione was and whether he was a homicide suspect; however, defendant-Mangione voluntary [sic] speaks to officers without police compulsion and willingly provides them with his forged identification,” prosecutors wrote. “In fact, at no time does Defendant-Mangione ask to leave, attempt to leave or try to disengage from the detention.”
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Prosecutors further stated that once Mangione “produced a fraudulent and forged identification, the encounter immediately ascended to probable cause arrest.”
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The filing comes after Mangione’s Pennsylvania defense attorney, Thomas Dickey, argued in a March court document that Mangione had been improperly detained and arrested at the McDonald’s, so certain evidence collected during that arrest should not be submitted as evidence against his client, including what he described as a warrantless search of the suspect’s backpack, statements made to police during his arrest and DNA evidence.
Fox News Digital reached out to Dickey.
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Mangione allegedly shot Thompson outside the Manhattan hotel where UnitedHealthcare’s annual shareholder conference was being held, in an act prosecutors believe was meant to send a message to the healthcare insurance industry based on a manifesto found on the suspect when he was arrested days after Thompson’s murder.
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In his writings, Mangione apparently expressed his grievances with the healthcare industry – specifically naming UnitedHealthcare and the shareholder conference where Thompson was headed in New York at the time of the assassination.
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He allegedly fled New York via bus and made it as far as Altoona, in between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, before he stopped at McDonald’s and ordered a hashbrown just before his arrest.
Mangione is accused of “meticulously” planning the murder with the motive of igniting a “public discussion about the healthcare industry,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
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New York prosecutors say Mangione plotted to travel to New York, find Thompson – a Minnesota resident in town for UnitedHealthcare’s annual shareholder conference – and kill him. Mangione allegedly shot Thompson from behind with a 3D-printed ghost gun and suppressor.
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The NYPD released a still image from surveillance video, showing him pulling his face mask down and smiling while flirting with a clerk at the check-in of the Manhattan hostel where police say he stayed for the murder. It went viral and immediately attracted a wave of support online for the accused killer.
Mangione is originally from Maryland and recently lived in California and Hawaii. He graduated as valedictorian from the Gilman School, a private, all-boys high school in Baltimore, in 2016.
Mangione went on to receive his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania in 2020.
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Fox News Digital’s Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.
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