New York
AP
—
Luigi Mangione’s lawyers contend that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision to seek the death penalty towards him within the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was tainted by her prior work as a lobbyist at a agency that represented the insurer’s dad or mum firm.
Bondi was a accomplice at Ballard Partners earlier than main the Justice Department’s cost to show Mangione’s federal prosecution right into a capital case, making a “profound conflict of interest” that violated his due course of rights, his lawyers wrote in a court docket submitting late Friday. They need prosecutors barred from looking for the death penalty and a few costs thrown out. A listening to is scheduled for Jan. 9.
By involving herself within the death penalty decision and making public statements suggesting that Mangione deserves execution, Bondi broke a vow she made earlier than taking workplace in February that she would comply with moral laws and bow out of issues pertaining to Ballard purchasers for a yr, Mangione’s lawyers mentioned.
They argued Bondi has continued to revenue from her work for Ballard — and, not directly, from its work for UnitedHealth Group — by means of a profit-sharing association with the lobbying agency and an outlined contribution plan it administers.
The “very person” empowered to hunt Mangione’s death “has a financial stake in the case she is prosecuting,” his lawyers wrote. Her conflict of interest “should have caused her to recuse herself from making any decisions on this case,” they added.
Messages looking for remark had been left for the Justice Department and Ballard Partners.
Bondi introduced in April that she was directing Manhattan federal prosecutors to hunt the death penalty, declaring even earlier than Mangione was formally indicted that capital punishment was warranted for a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”
Thompson, 50, was killed Dec. 4, 2024, as he walked to a Manhattan resort for UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor convention. Surveillance video confirmed a masked gunman capturing him from behind. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” had been written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to explain how insurers keep away from paying claims.
Mangione, 27, the Ivy League-educated scion of a rich Maryland household, was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan. He has pleaded not responsible to federal and state homicide costs. The state costs carry the likelihood of life in jail. Neither trial has been scheduled.
Friday’s submitting put the main focus again on Mangione’s federal case a day after a marathon pretrial hearing led to his combat to bar prosecutors in his state case from utilizing sure proof discovered throughout his arrest, comparable to a gun that police mentioned matched the one used to kill Thompson and a pocket book by which he purportedly described his intent to “wack” a medical health insurance govt. A ruling isn’t anticipated till May.
Mangione’s protection group, led by the husband-and-wife duo of Karen Friedman-Agnifilo and Marc Agnifilo, zeroed in on Bondi’s previous lobbying work as they search to persuade U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett to rule out capital punishment, throw out some costs and exclude the identical proof they need suppressed from the state case.
In a September court docket submitting, Mangione’s lawyers argued that Bondi’s announcement that she was ordering prosecutors to hunt the death penalty — which she adopted with Instagram posts and a TV look — confirmed the decision was “based on politics, not merit.” They additionally mentioned her remarks tainted the grand jury course of that resulted in his indictment just a few weeks later.
Bondi’s statements and different official actions — together with a extremely choreographed perp stroll that noticed Mangione led up a Manhattan pier by armed officers, and the Trump administration’s flouting of established death penalty procedures — “have violated Mr. Mangione’s constitutional and statutory rights and have fatally prejudiced this death penalty case,” his lawyers mentioned.
In a court docket submitting final month, federal prosecutors argued that “pretrial publicity, even when intense, is not itself a constitutional defect.”
Rather than dismissing the case outright or barring the federal government from looking for the death penalty, prosecutors argued, the protection’s considerations can finest be alleviated by fastidiously questioning potential jurors about their data of the case and making certain Mangione’s rights are revered at trial.
“What the defendant recasts as a constitutional crisis is merely a repackaging of arguments” rejected in earlier circumstances, prosecutors mentioned. “None warrants dismissal of the indictment or categorical preclusion of a congressionally authorized punishment.”
Mangione’s lawyers mentioned they wish to examine Bondi’s ties to Ballard and the agency’s relationship with UnitedHealth Group and can ask for varied supplies, together with particulars of Bondi’s compensation from the agency, any course she’s given Justice Department staff relating to the case or UnitedHealthcare, and sworn testimony from “all individuals with personal knowledge of the relevant matters.”