UnitedHealthcare CEO Murder: Will Luigi Mangione Face Federal Charges?

It is unlikely but not impossible that Luigi Mangione, suspected of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week, will face a federal lawsuit, and it is “fair to be concerned” that the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “will mishandle this case.” ” former prosecutors told Fox News Digital.

Mangione was arrested Monday morning by police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a five-day manhunt when a McDonald’s customer recognized his face from wanted posters.

On Tuesday, Mangione refused to waive his right to an extradition hearing in a Pennsylvania court, and his lawyer said he planned to file a habeas corpus challenge to Mangione’s arrest. Bragg and Blair County District Attorney Peter Weeks are working to bring the 26-year-old Ivy League graduate to New York.

“There is no obvious catch to a federal murder charge,” James Trusty, who served as a Maryland prosecutor for 27 years, told Fox News Digital based on publicly available details of the case.

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CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione screams as officers restrain him as he arrives for his extradition hearing in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, December 10, 2024. (David Dee Delgado for Fox News Digital)

However, Trusty said evidence of possible federal charges could be found on Mangione’s laptop, which was seized upon his arrest.

Although federal authorities can bring murder charges, Trusty said, “The type of things that could result in it going to the federal level is if (the murder) was related to organized crime, drug trafficking or a hate crime, which is a narrower definition than that.” “I hate insurance companies,” Trusty said.

Members of the Altoona Police Department wrote in a criminal complaint obtained by Fox News Digital that they found a “black 3D printed handgun and a black silencer.” Possessing such a “ghost gun” – a homemade weapon that does not have screw-on breechblocks and therefore cannot be traced – is a federal crime, John Ryan, former head of the Joint Terrorism Task Force and chief security officer at the Port Authority, told Fox News Digital.

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This view shows the SCI Huntingdon State Correctional Facility in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, on December 10, 2024. Luigi Mangione is being held at the detention facility. (David Dee Delgado for Fox News Digital)

But conviction on such a charge would amount to a far shorter sentence than a state-level murder charge, Trusty said, probably just a year behind bars.

“If there’s something like a ghost gun that becomes a standalone federal case, you could do that as a ‘safety net’ to say, ‘We’re going to get something out of this (prosecution),” Trusty said.

Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy wrote in a National Review article on Monday that he had concerns that Bragg would prosecute Mangione’s case.

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Luigi Mangione (Obtained from Fox News Digital)

“Can you trust Alvin Bragg – the role model of the progressive prosecutor who looks at the streets of New York as if they were straight out of Howard Zinn’s revisionist history of the United States – to sue a radical left for carrying out a ‘direct Action’ against a capitalist oppressor?” McCarthy wrote.

McCarthy, also a former federal prosecutor, wrote that he “wouldn’t be surprised if President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees for the Justice Department and State Department took a close look at the travel law,” an old mainstay in organized crime prosecutions “to take the case out of Bragg’s hands.

A conviction on a federal charge also carries the possibility of a death penalty; The death penalty was banned in New York in 2004.

The murder of suspect Luigi Mangione by UnitedHealthcare CEO is shown at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania on December 9, 2024. (Pennsylvania State Police)

But Trusty said that outcome was “highly unlikely.” Even if Mangione did not act alone, there would have to be evidence that he was “part of an organization that commits crimes” for the travel law to apply.

“Think of the Mafia, MS-13, Tren de Aragua,” Trusty said. “Even someone who helped him in an active conspiracy role doesn’t clear a federal hook.”

Mangione could have been charged with murder by federal authorities if Thompson had been killed on federal property, Trusty said, but that was not the case.

Trusty said it was “fair” that McCarthy had concerns about Bragg’s possible handling of Mangione’s case.

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“I think Bragg has shown a preference for politically oriented law enforcement decisions,” he said. “The indictment of Daniel Penny 11 days after the incident immediately sent a bad sign that he was listening to political voices and not conducting a thorough investigation to determine what the facts are and what a fair outcome is.”

“Moreover, his unprincipled persecution of President Trump after he and the State Department walked away from a case led by Michael Cohen is another bad sign,” he said. “It is reasonable to fear that he will mishandle this case, perhaps by allowing politics to enter the decision-making process rather than being a professional prosecutor.”