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Attorney General Pam Bondi stated that the Justice Department will seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, the alleged killer of CEOs. If Mangione is found guilty of capital murder, Bondi stated that she will direct Matthew Podolsky, the interim US attorney for the Southern District of New York, to seek the death penalty in the case. After allegedly shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan in December, Mangione is facing both state and federal charges. He has denied the charges brought by the state. A federal criminal complaint included allegations against Mangione, but he has not yet been charged. Karen Friedman Agnifilo, Mangione's attorney, has stated that she discussed the decision with the Justice Department. It was not immediately possible to reach her for a response. A spokesman for the US attorney’s office declined to comment.
The news is one of the first major announcements made by the Trump administration regarding the federal death penalty, which the president has made it clear he wants his Justice Department to pursue whenever it is necessary. President Donald Trump issued an executive order instructing the attorney general to "pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use" upon taking office in January. Mangione is accused of using a firearm to commit murder, two counts of stalking, and a firearms offense in the federal criminal complaint. Mangione's legal team gained a death penalty-experienced attorney in February. According to court documents and Mangione's lawyers, Avraham Moskowitz has represented more than 50 people in New York who have been charged with crimes that are eligible for the death penalty. Officials have stated that Mangione's case will be heard first in New York state court, despite the fact that he is currently being held in federal custody in Brooklyn, New York. A grand jury in Manhattan indicted him on 11 counts, including other weapons and forgery charges, one count of first-degree murder, and two counts of second-degree murder. If he is found guilty of the state's charges, he could be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. According to the charge of first-degree murder, he killed the executive "in furtherance of an act of terrorism," which is defined by law as an intention to intimidate or coerce the civilian population or a government unit. Mangione is also accused of committing murder "as a crime of terrorism" in one of the second-degree counts. The 26-year-old also faces state charges in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested after a weeklong manhunt in December.
A "ghost gun" and a notebook filled with notes that, according to authorities, revealed a well-planned homicide involving stalking his alleged victim when he was apprehended in a Pennsylvania McDonald's. More than $700,000 has been raised for Mangione's legal costs as a result of the widespread support he has received from a growing fan base. In the months leading up to his departure from office, Trump's administration executed 13 inmates, the first federal executions in nearly two decades. Trump also made it clear during the campaign for president in 2024 that he wanted to restart federal executions. However, when President Joe Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 federal death row inmates to life in prison, only three were found guilty of high-profile mass shootings or acts of terrorism, putting a barrier in the way of his successor's goal. When Bondi took office at the beginning of February, she issued a memo denouncing Biden's commutations, echoing Trump's executive order. She wrote that they had "severely undermined the rule of law" and had "betrayed our sacred duty and broken our promise to achieve justice," among other things. Bondi announced that the Justice Department would lift a moratorium on federal executions that had been in place during the Biden administration, writing, "This shameful era ends today." "The Department of Justice will once again act as the law requires going forward," the statement reads. "This includes seeking the death penalty in appropriate cases and swiftly executing those sentences in accordance with the law."
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