Luigi Mangione, accused of killing UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, has been charged with murder as an act of terrorism. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare’s CEO has been charged with murder as an act of terrorism, prosecutors said Tuesday as they worked to bring him to a New York court from from a Pennsylvania jail.

Luigi Mangione already was charged with murder in the Dec. 4 killing of Brian Thompson, but the terror allegation is new.

Under New York law, such a charge can be brought when an alleged crime is “intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policies of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion and affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder, assassination or kidnapping.”

Mangione’s New York lawyer has not commented on the case.

Thompson, 50, was shot dead as he walked to a Manhattan hotel where Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare — the United States’ biggest medical insurer — was holding an investor conference.

After days of intense police searches and publicity, Mangione was arrested on Dec. 9 after being spotted in a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. New York police officials have said Mangione was carrying the gun used to kill Thompson, a passport and various fake IDs, including one that the suspected shooter presented to check into a New York hostel.

The 26-year-old was charged with Pennsylvania gun and forgery offenses and locked up there without bail. His Pennsylvania lawyer has questioned the evidence for the forgery charge and the legal grounding for the gun charge. The attorney also has said Mangione would fight extradition to New York.

The indictment could help move along procedural steps toward extraditing the suspect.

Hours after his arrest, the Manhattan district attorney’s office filed paperwork charging him with murder and other offenses. The indictment builds on that paperwork.

Investigators’ working theory is that Mangione, an Ivy League computer science grad from a prominent Maryland family, was propelled by anger at the U.S. health care system. A law enforcement bulletin obtained by The Associated Press week said that when arrested, he was carrying a handwritten letter that called health insurance companies “parasitic” and complained about corporate greed.

Mangione repeatedly posted on social media about how spinal surgery last year had eased his chronic back pain, encouraging people with similar conditions to speak up for themselves if told they just had to live with it.

In a Reddit post in late April, he advised someone with a back problem to seek additional opinions from surgeons and, if necessary, say the pain made it impossible to work.

“We live in a capitalist society,” Mangione wrote. “I’ve found that the medical industry responds to these key words far more urgently than you describing unbearable pain and how it’s impacting your quality of life.”

He was never a UnitedHealthcare client, according to the insurer.

Mangione apparently cut himself off from his family and close friends in recent months. His family reported him missing to San Francisco authorities in November.

Thompson, who grew up on a farm in small-town Iowa, was trained as an accountant. A married father of two high-schoolers, he had worked at the giant UnitedHealth Group for 20 years and became CEO of its insurance arm in 2021.

His killing kindled a fiery outpouring of resentment toward U.S. health insurance companies, as Americans swapped stories online and elsewhere of being denied coverage, left in limbo as doctors and insurers disagreed, and stuck with sizeable bills.

The shooting also rattled C-suites, as “wanted” posters with other health care executives’ names and faces appeared on New York streets and an outpouring of online vitriol prompted police to warn that there could be an “elevated threat.”

A poster is attached to a lamp post outside the Hilton hotel near the scene where the CEO of UnitedHealthcare Brian Thompson was shot dead in Midtown Manhattan, in New York City, U.S., December 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Police have arrested a 26-year-old with a weapon “consistent with” the gun used in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, New York City’s police commissioner says.

Thompson, 50, died in a dawn ambush Wednesday as he walked to the company’s annual investor conference at Manhattan hotel. Thompson had traveled from Minnesota for the event.

A man with a gun thought to be similar to the one used in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was taken into police custody Monday for questioning in Pennsylvania, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.

Police apprehended the man after receiving a tip that he had been spotted at a McDonald’s near Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 233 miles (375 kilometers) west of New York City, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss details of the investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Along with the gun, police found a silencer, fake IDs and writings that appeared to be critical of the health insurance industry, according to the law enforcement official.

The NYPD is sending detectives to Pennsylvania to question the person taken into custody. New York City Mayor Eric Adams is expected to address this development at a previously scheduled afternoon press briefing in Manhattan.

Thompson, 50, was killed last Wednesday in what police said was a “brazen, targeted” attack as he walked alone to the Hilton from a nearby hotel, where UnitedHealthcare’s parent company, UnitedHealth Group, was holding its annual investor conference, police said.

The shooter appeared to be “lying in wait for several minutes” before approaching the executive from behind and opening fire, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. He used a 9 mm pistol that police said resembled the guns farmers use to put down animals without causing a loud noise.

In the days since the shooting, police turned to the public for help by releasing a collection of photos and video — including footage of the attack, as well as images of the suspect at a Starbucks beforehand.

Photos taken in the lobby of a hostel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side showed the suspect grinning after removing his mask, police said.

Investigators have suggested the gunman may have been a disgruntled employee or client of the insurer.

Ammunition found near Thompson’s body bore the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose,” mimicking a phrase used by insurance industry critics.

The gunman concealed his identity with a mask during the shooting yet left a trail of evidence, including a backpack he ditched in Central Park, a cellphone found in a pedestrian plaza and a water bottle and protein bar wrapper that police say he bought at Starbucks minutes before the attack.

Monday’s development came as dogs and divers returned to New York’s Central Park while the dragnet for Thompson’s killer stretched into a sixth day.

Investigators have been combing the park since the Wednesday shooting and have been searching at least one of its ponds for three days.

On Friday, police found the backpack that they say the killer discarded as he fled from the crime scene to an uptown bus station, where they believe he left the city on a bus.

Retracing the gunman’s steps using surveillance video, investigators say the shooter fled into Central Park on a bicycle, emerged from park without his backpack and then ditched the bicycle.

He then walked a couple blocks and got into a taxi, arriving at at the George Washington Bridge Bus Station, which is near the northern tip of Manhattan and offers commuter service to New Jersey and Greyhound routes to Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.

The FBI announced late Friday that it was offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction, adding to a reward of up to $10,000 that the NYPD has offered. Police say they believe the suspect acted alone.

Late Saturday, police released two additional photos of the suspect that appeared to be from a camera mounted inside a taxi. The first shows him outside the vehicle and the second shows him looking through the partition between the back seat and the front of the cab. In both, his face is partially obscured by a blue mask.

Through the park search, the NYPD has taken steps to minimize disruption to visitors, leading to an odd juxtaposition of joggers, tourists and an active crime scene.

On Monday, a small section of the park was cordoned off with blue and white police tape, giving divers searching a pond an area to change and get in the water. K-9 units sniffed leaf-covered planters between walking paths.

At one point, a group of about 30 French-speaking tourists followed a guide down a path, but they couldn’t go any further because of the police tape. Before turning back, many of them whipped out their phones to snap a photo of the divers.