Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty this Friday before a federal court in Manhattan to the murder of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, which occurred on December 4, 2024, in front of a hotel in Midtown New York.
Judge Margaret M. Garnett accepted the plea and set the sentencing for December 18, 2026. The maximum penalty is life imprisonment.
Minute by minute in the room
CBS News, NBC News and The New York Times broadcast in real time from the Manhattan federal courthouse.
Thompson’s family arrived first, at 10:50 a.m. The victim’s mother, Pat Thompson, took the front row along with relatives and UnitedHealthcare executives. Twenty minutes later, Mangione entered, with his feet shackled and his hands behind his back.
Shortly before 11:15 a.m., his defense informed the judge that Mangione was prepared to plead guilty. Garnett found him competent to enter the plea after asking him a series of questions about his background and use of medication.
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The federal case for the murder of Brian Thompson did not include a formal plea agreement.
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At 11:37 a.m., Mangione read his statement. He explained that, after years of severe pain from a back injury and dealing with the insurance system, he learned that UnitedHealthcare would be holding its annual investor conference in New York. Although the location was not published, he researched the event online, emailed company executives posing as an investor, and received a response in less than an hour.
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He specified that he manufactured a gun with a 3D printer and added a silencer to it. Then he described the crime: “I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan. I understood that my actions would cause him fear of death or bodily injury. I knew that what I was doing was illegal”.
Judge Margaret M. Garnett accepted Luigi Mangione’s guilty plea and scheduled sentencing for December 18, 2026.
Garnett then asked him how he pleaded. Mangione replied: “Guilty”. The judge accepted the plea immediately and announced the sentencing date. She indicated that there is no parole in the federal system, although good behavior can reduce time in prison, and that Mangione must serve at least 85% of the sentence.
Throughout the entire process, the defendant showed no emotion, but answered every question with solemnity and clarity, as reported by The New York Times. The hearing ended at 11:45 a.m. There was no formal agreement between the defense and the prosecution.
The charges he admitted to
Mangione faced four federal charges. Judge Garnett dismissed two on January 30, 2026: the one for murder through the use of a firearm —the only one that allowed for the death penalty— and an additional weapons charge. The reason was technical: to sustain the federal murder charge, the prosecution needed to prove that the crime occurred during another “crime of violence” and argued that the stalking charges met that requirement.
Garnett dissented and, applying Supreme Court jurisprudence, determined that harassment does not qualify as such because, in theory, it can be committed without the use of physical force. The prosecution did not appeal.
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The two charges that Mangione admitted to this Friday are interstate stalking resulting in death and stalking through interstate means resulting in death. Both carry a life sentence.
The crime
Thompson was walking toward the entrance of a hotel on West 54th Street in Manhattan when he was shot in the back. Surveillance cameras captured the attack and the escape by bicycle.
The bullets had the words “delay”, “deny” and “depose” engraved on them—a reference to the practices that critics attribute to insurers to avoid paying claims.
The prosecution presented videos of the attack in Manhattan, the escape by bicycle, DNA, shell casings, and notes from Luigi Mangione regarding his intention to kill a healthcare executive
Five days after the crime, a McDonald’s employee in Altoona, Pennsylvania, recognized Mangione. He was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, came from a wealthy family in Maryland, and had never been a UnitedHealthcare customer.
What happens now with the state trial
The state second-degree murder trial is scheduled for September. The federal guilty plea puts it in doubt.
The defense may argue double jeopardy to request its dismissal. CBS News legal analyst Caroline Polisi noted that a federal conviction provides “a stronger double jeopardy protection in the state case” and could lead to a motion to dismiss that proceeding.
Legal expert Rich Schoenstein disagreed: federal charges are technically distinct from state ones, so the argument is “open, complicated, and subject to debate.” He added that the statement could, instead, pressure state prosecutors to negotiate a plea deal.
