Luigi Mangione, the accused killer of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, has requested a laptop in jail. His lawyers made sure that it was not for communicating with anyone but should be a limited version which only allows him to view a vast amount of documents, video and other material connected to the case. Similar limited laptop provisions have been made for some other defendants in his lockup.
Mangione’s lawyers said the prosecutors are not quite positive about this request and they claimed some witnesses of this case have been threatened. Mangione’s lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said Mangione has no connection with any of the said threats.
There are documents of more than 15,000 pages and videos of thousands of hours that prosecutors gathered. Without a laptop, Mangione can view the material only when he is meeting his lawyers, but there are not enough visiting hours for then. A laptop without any internet connection, video games and movies or any other entertainment would be fine for Mangione, the lawyers said.
Luigi Mangione’s defense so far in the case
26-year-old Mangione was arrested on the charge of gunning down Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel apparently out of his spite for big health insurance companies who victimize their customers. Mangione was never a customer of UnitedHealth. He has pleaded not guilty to the New York state charges. He also faces a parallel federal case that carries a possible death penalty. He did not enter a plea to the federal or to state-level gun possession and other charges in Pennsylvania.
Mangione’s team said his detention was unconstitutional and that the police had no evidence against him; they were only looking for a person who was seen in surveillance footage. They said Mangione was tricked into giving the police his DNA as the police offered him soda and snacks. They said the police violated his rights in collecting the DNA samples like that and also argued that DNA evidence can’t be deemed admissible in court.
