US Attorney General Pam Bondi says decision is based on President Donald Trump’s agenda to stop crime and ‘Make America Safe Again’.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi has said that she has directed prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione, the man accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
It is the first time the Justice Department has sought to bring the death penalty since US President Donald Trump returned to office in January with a campaign vow to resume federal executions.
Bondi’s decision to pursue the death penalty comes in a high-profile case, reported around the world, against Mangione, who has drawn a legion of supporters vehemently opposed to what they say are abuses by the healthcare industry.
Thompson’s killing alarmed the corporate world, where some health insurers hastily switched to remote work or online shareholder meetings. But the case also channelled some Americans’ deep frustrations with health insurance companies that have been accused of denying many critical care due to cost.
Mangione’s writings and words on bullets recovered from the scene reflected animus toward health insurers and corporate America, authorities have said.
Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson from behind. Police say the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were scrawled on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase commonly used to describe insurer tactics to avoid paying claims.
“Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson – an innocent man and father of two young children – was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America,” Bondi said in a statement on Tuesday that described Thompson’s killing as “an act of political violence”.
“After careful consideration, I have directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case as we carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again,” Bondi said.
Trump oversaw an unprecedented run of executions at the end of his first term and has been an outspoken proponent of expanding capital punishment. Bondi’s order comes weeks after she lifted a moratorium on the federal death penalty that had been imposed under former President Joe Biden’s administration.
In his final weeks in office, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row, converting their punishments to life in prison.
Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate, is accused of gunning down Thompson on December 4 outside a Manhattan hotel where UnitedHealthcare was about to hold an investor conference. Thompson, who was 50 and had two children in high school, worked for decades within UnitedHealthcare and its parent company.
Mangione faces separate federal and state murder charges for the killing. The federal charges include murder through the use of a firearm, which carries the possibility of the death penalty. The state charges carry a maximum punishment of life in prison. Mangione has pleaded not guilty to a state indictment and has not entered a plea to the federal charges.
Prosecutors have said the two cases will proceed on parallel tracks, with the state case expected to go to trial first. It wasn’t immediately clear if Bondi’s announcement will change the order.
Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman-Agnifilo, has said she would seek to suppress some of the evidence seized during his arrest. She has also taken issue with the parallel prosecutions, accusing “warring jurisdictions” of turning Mangione into a “human ping-pong ball”.
Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370km) west of New York City, after a five-day manhunt.
Police said Mangione had with him a 9mm handgun that matched the one used in the shooting and other items including a fake ID and a notebook described by authorities as a “manifesto” in which they say he expressed hostility towards the health insurance industry and wealthy executives.
Among the entries in the notebook, prosecutors said, was one from August 2024 that said “the target is insurance” because “it checks every box” and one from October that describes an intent to “wack” an insurance company CEO.
UnitedHealthcare is the largest health insurer in the US, though the company said Mangione was never a client.
After his arrest, Mangione was whisked by plane and helicopter back to New York and walked slowly up a Manhattan pier in a highly choreographed spectacle by a throng of officers with assault rifles and a contingent that included New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
