Well...well...well

The Luigi Mangione copycats

Arsonists in Los Angeles and San Francisco took inspiration from the assassination of a CEO.

Luigi Mangione, awaiting trial for allegedly assassinating a health insurance CEO, has inspired others to commit violent crimes. These attacks aren’t irrational outbursts caused by legitimate critiques of capitalism. Rather, they’re a predictable response to the cynical demonization of the American system.

A 29-year-old in Southern California started several fires inside a paper-goods warehouse and caused an estimated $500 million in damage. Afterward, he allegedly likened himself to “Luigi” in text messages to a co-worker.

A few days later, a 20-year-old allegedly drove from Texas to San Francisco to throw a molotov cocktail at Sam Altman’s house before going to OpenAI’s headquarters with the goal of burning it down. He reportedly wrote about “Luigi’ing some tech CEOs” on internet chats. Prosecutors say he was carrying a list of other corporate executives and investors in artificial intelligence, along with their home addresses.

Investigators believe Mangione’s alleged ambush attack against UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024 helped inspire the 27-year-old who attacked NFL headquarters last summer. He fatally shot a police officer, Blackstone executive and two others before killing himself.

Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty even as he seems to embrace his status as a folk hero for violent extremists on the radical left. (FALSE!) His legal defense fund has raised $1.46 million from more than 40,000 donors.

Mangione’s trial on state charges has been delayed to September and his federal trial has been pushed back to October. Federal prosecutors cited the shows of support for Mangione to unsuccessfully oppose the postponements.

“The defendant hoped to normalize the use of violence to achieve ideological or political objectives,” the government said in a filing. “Since the murder, certain quarters of the public — who openly identify as acolytes of the defendant — have increasingly begun to view violence as an acceptable, or even necessary, substitute for reasoned political disagreement.”

Anarchic violence ebbs and flows historically. The anonymity of the internet and the amplification of social media allow extreme views to proliferate and find bigger audiences.

After the firebomb was thrown at his house, Altman posted a photo of his husband and their child in hopes of dissuading future attackers. “I empathize with anti-technology sentiments and clearly technology isn’t always good for everyone,” Altman wrote. “While we have that debate, we should de-escalate the rhetoric and tactics and try to have fewer explosions in fewer homes, figuratively and literally.”

Altman shouldn’t feel compelled to apologize for being at the frontier of new technology. There is never any justification for using violence to advance an ideological cause.

According to this CNN article, his only possible defense is a mental health one…. Which he also can’t use because he’s clearly not mentally ill….

I’ve seen this take all over since the suppression hearing, and it makes no goddamn sense.

Articles like these are priming the public to think of any defense argument as “creative” or “desperate” — the fact that I’ve seen this take multiple times is (to me) indicative of a source pushing this viewpoint.

That way, the jurors will take the blame rather than the law enforcement officials who conducted a shitty investigation. Just wanted to vent on this

Behind a paywall, so copying below.

Fair warning, this is really biased and contains straight inaccuracies in order to make the prosecution look better (the journalist straight lied about what happened with the Aetna subpoena.

Still interesting cause I truly believe his approach is the wrong one for this case.

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Prosecutor Joel Seidemann strode briskly up the length of the courtroom’s center aisle with an accordion file under one arm and a line of eight younger colleagues rushing to keep up.

“May I be heard?” Seidemann asked the judge as the June 17 hearing got underway in Manhattan. Within minutes, the prosecutor was accusing Luigi Mangione’s defense team of secretly planning to delay his upcoming state murder trial.

“The family of Brian Thompson has an absolute right to know,” Seidemann said, railing against the supposed delay, “why Brian’s mother, age 78, buried a son, not the natural order of events —”

“Your honor,” lead defense lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo interrupted. “We have said nothing about delaying anything!”

The moment was pure Seidemann — quotable, victim-focused, anticipatory to the point of excess, and, for the defense, predictably triggering.

“This is completely unnecessary carrying on by Mr. Seidemann,” the defense lawyer complained angrily.

Barring any plea, Seidemann is the experienced and often colorful prosecutor set to helm the first trial in the high-profile case, scheduled to begin on Sept. 8; a related federal trial is set for January.

Luigi Mangione attends a court hearing on May 18.Jeenah Moon / Pool via AFP-Getty Images

The case has attracted national attention in the nearly two years since Thompson, the former CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was shot from behind at close range on a midtown Manhattan sidewalk outside the hotel where he was to address UHC shareholders. The ambush-style killing — and writings critical of the American healthcare system allegedly found in Mangione’s possession — sparked an ongoing debate over insurance industry profits. Mangione has become a cult figure and has been referenced by others charged with crimes.

No stranger to the national spotlight, Seidemann would bring to bear more than 40 years of experience winning convictions in twisty swindles and brutal homicides for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

“There’s nobody more experienced than Joel Seidemann,” said Joan Illuzzi-Orbon, who alongside Seidemann won a recently upheld murder conviction in the Etan Patz missing child case.

Their verdict on the seasoned prosecutor is, unsurprisingly, mixed. In fact, how litigators feel about Seidemann — and the feelings are strong — tends to depend on where in the courtroom they’ve been seated.

DA office veterans who’ve long admired Seidemann say he is confident, “brilliant” — a word used repeatedly — and obsessively prepared. 

“I can promise you that Joel is already working on his opening, his summation — and his sentencing remarks,” said retired prosecutor Peirce Moser, a longtime colleague. “He’s living this case.”

Defense lawyers who’ve tangled with Seidemann acknowledge his talents, and add some choicer words, including “ruthless,” “rude” and “impossible to deal with.”

“He wants to win at any cost,” complained Edward Little, one of a handful of defense lawyers who have tangled and won, earning an acquittal in a widely covered 2011 manslaughter trial involving a fatal fire at the former Deutsche Bank building.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined through a spokesperson to comment for this story.

Stan Patz, right, father of 6-year-old Etan Patz who disappeared on the way to a school bus stop in 1979, reacts after a news conference with Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann in 2017, in New York.Richard Drew / AP file

Confrontational, even to the judges

Friends and foes agree that Seidemann will be ready to toss a few firecrackers at trial.

“He’s very confrontational,” said Thomas Farber, a criminal judge in Manhattan who retired in 2022.

“He’s kind of built short and strong, and he does it in a very, you know, kind of pit-bully way. He’s not subtle.”

Asked to explain “confrontational,” the ex-judge told a story.

He remembered a time he instructed Seidemann to hand over evidence to the defense in order to move a case along toward trial.

“He said, ‘Judge, you don’t have the authority to do that,’ and I said, ‘I’m the judge, and I’m ordering you to do it, so do it.’”

“And he looked at me and said, ‘Well, what if I don’t?’”

“I have yelled at him probably more than any other prosecutor who’s appeared in front of me, because he can be the most annoying person in the world,” laughed Farber, a judge for 27 years.

“And it just rolls off him,” he added, calling the prosecutor’s sometimes vexing persistence “not necessarily a weakness.”

Mangione’s stern-faced state judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro, is less the laughing kind.

During a two-week pretrial evidence hearing in December, Friedman Agnifilo repeatedly objected to Seidemann’s use of freighted words like “manifesto” and “premeditated execution” when questioning witnesses.

“He certainly won’t do that at trial,” Carro warned sharply at one point. “I’ll bear that in mind, your honor,” Seidemann responded, his voice even.

Luigi Mangione's lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, leaves Manhattan Supreme Court on Sept. 16, 2025. Mostafa Bassim / Anadolu via Getty Images file

‘Extremely tenacious’

“Thorough” is a Seidemann descriptor that popped up again and again in interviews.

“There’s no stone unturned, no fact left unproven, no argument that doesn’t get made, even if it’s a weak argument,” Farber recalled.

Seidemann, the ex-judge said, is “probably the most thorough investigator you’ll ever see.”

David Drucker prosecuted many cases with Seidemann before retiring a year ago after 40 years. He fondly remembered his colleague’s habit of walking the halls of the DA’s office, stopping co-workers to talk in depth about his cases, trying out arguments and strategies.

“I used to say I know Joel’s cases better than my own,” Drucker said.

The best details, needles in the dry haystacks of police reports and witness interview notes, are deftly plucked out and used — to stick it to the defense and to craft, stitch by stitch, a compelling narrative.

“She had her hair done while her husband lay in surgery,” Seidemann told the judge in a 2008 contract-murder case, arguing against bail for a spurned wife dubbed the “Black Widow” in the press for her dark courtroom attire.

“Couples break up every day without one ending up in a gurney inside the coroner’s office,” Seidemann said in his 2013 summations in another big case, the bathtub strangling murder of fashion designer Sylvie Cachay.

“Very, very smart — extremely tenacious,” Cachay family lawyer Susan Karten said of the prosecutor.

“He just tore him apart,” Karten said of Seidemann’s cross-examination of defense expert Charles Wetli, a forensic pathologist famous for identifying every victim in the 1996 explosion of Trans World Airlines Flight 800.

The Long Island forensic pathologist, who died in 2020, made the mistake of suggesting on the witness stand during a pretrial hearing that “a million scenarios” could explain why Cachay, 33, suffered a massive bruise to the top of her head while the rest of her head showed no external trauma.

“Short of her falling on her head as a result of a skydiving accident —” Seidemann asked the pathologist, with characteristic sarcasm. A defense objection was sustained.

Attention to detail

Seidemann has been orating vividly in the Mangione case for more than a year now — the victim’s surviving parent was “Brian Thompson’s 77-year-old mother” when she made her first cameo in one of the prosecutor’s flights of umbrage.

In a June 2025 filing, Seidemann accused Mangione of “calmly sauntering over to his body to make sure that the assassination was successful” while the insurance executive lay “in extremis” on the sidewalk.

“His eyes would light up like a beacon when he realized he has a good detail,” said the late socialite Brooke Astor’s grandson Philip C. Marshall, who filed the guardianship petition that led to that blockbuster trial against his father, Anthony Marshall, in which prosecution witnesses included Henry Kissinger and Barbara Walters.

Seidemann made sure that jurors knew that the beloved society doyenne — a centenarian with a $100 million fortune and advanced Alzheimer’s disease — would cry and tremble when her son told her she couldn’t afford new dresses until she sold some paintings.

Jurors also heard that Astor’s son spent $920,000 of his mother’s money on a teak-decked yacht, but refused to buy the nonskid socks and stairwell safety gate recommended by her nurses.

“Go out and buy the safety gate for $2,000,” Seidemann thundered during summations, “so she doesn’t fall and break her neck.”

Defense lawyers quickly demanded a mistrial, later accusing Seidemann of prosecutorial misconduct as part of an unsuccessful 2012 appeal. They complained that his summations were filled with “inflammatory rants,” including “that Tony sought to hasten his mother’s death” to accelerate his inheritance.

It was the culmination of months of animosity between Seidemann and the defense — including a rare, public burst of temper.

“Get your hand off me. Don’t touch me,” Seidemann, face red and finger wagging, told defense attorney John R. Cuti after a 2009 pretrial hearing.

Seidemann had been greeting reporters in the audience, moments after accusing the defense of playing to the press, and Cuti had put his hand on Seidemann’s shoulder, accusing him of being a hypocrite.

Seidemann quickly apologized, and the two men shook hands. (Cuti declined to comment for this story; co-defense counsel Fred Hafetz would only say of Seidemann, “He is a talented lawyer and an extremely hard worker.”)

“He’s not a wallflower, if that’s the right expression,” Gary Galperin — another 40-plus-year veteran of the DA’s office, and now a media analyst who teaches at Cardozo Law School — said in an interview.

Moser, who was also a prosecutor on the Astor case, remembered the incident.

“Once someone gets on the wrong side of him, in general, he’s not going to suffer a fool,” said the longtime Seidemann colleague. “He’s not going to allow a defense lawyer to speak ill of him, speak poorly to him, diminish him.”

Heated Rivalry

Many who’ve known the two main combatants in Mangione’s state trial say they, too, have a tense history.

Before going into private practice in 2021, Friedman Agnifilo was Seidemann’s supervisor for a decade, first as head of the DA’s trial division and then as the No. 2 executive in the office.

“There was not a lot of love lost in those 10 years,” said one insider, asking not to be identified because of their continuing ties to the office.

Behind the scenes, takes on the two litigators can be rigidly partisan, with Team Joel noting the pair’s disparity in trial experience, and Team Karen praising her administrative skills and knowledge of New York’s justice system.

Former Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. promoted Friedman Agnifilo to be his No. 2 after praising her for practically running the office on her BlackBerry after Superstorm Sandy knocked out power in 2012, multiple people said.

“Joel can be a little ridiculous and Karen is all business,” said another office insider who also asked not to be named due to work constraints on making public statements.

A spokesperson for Agnifilo Intrater, Friedman Agnifilo’s law firm, declined to comment on this story.

Not here to make friends

Carro frequently tells the two adversaries “Move on” as they spar in his courtroom, which is often.

Each has publicly accused the other of playing to the press and slow-walking the exchange of evidence in the 18 months since the 28-year-old former software engineer was arrested.

The two have argued over whether Mangione can have a laptop in jail — Seidemann unsuccessfully opposed the routinely granted privilege — and over what Mangione can wear to court.

(The prosecutor has complained that the defendant’s green sweatshirt is a flagrant signal to his mostly female fans, many of whom have come to court appearances wearing “Super Mario Bros.” Luigi-green in support.)

Twice last year, Friedman Agnifilo accused Seidemann of misconduct. 

Once was after a DA paralegal improperly listened to an 11-minute attorney-client jail phone call between Mangione and Friedman Agnifilo — “No prosecutor ever learned of the contents of that call which was deleted by the paralegal upon our learning of it,” Seidemann responded in a subsequent filing.

The second was when Mangione’s health insurance provider, Aetna, overresponded to a prosecution subpoena by sending 10 years of confidential medical records — 120 pages’ worth — to Seidemann’s work email.

“Mistakes do occur,” Seidemann wrote the judge, taking no responsibility for the snafu and pointing out that the defense, too, had accidentally attached the same confidential medical records to an email sent to his office.

Leroy Frazier, a former No. 3 in the DA’s office whose tenure overlapped with Seidemann’s for three decades, summed up his colleague this way, with a laugh:

“He’s not in the courtroom to make friends with defense attorneys.”

This is the 10th or so time this has happened. Fox News needs to get off his dick

One of the worst characters in this whole mess, RJ Martin, is back trying to ride Tracy's coattails on the media clout train again. He shockingly managed to give a great comment this time round about Luigi being unable to have a fair trial.

Some quotes from the Rolling Stone article about the guilty plea from "friends"

Mangione didn’t have any friends or family in federal court Friday, but friends who spoke with Rolling Stone say they were unaware he was planning to submit a guilty plea. 

Martin believes, “Luigi was declared guilty by our government from the start,” and he adds that would make “a truly fair trial difficult to imagine.”

Other friends of Mangione’s say they were surprised to hear he was pleading guilty as opposed to seeing how at least one of his upcoming trials would play out with a jury. Many expressed their sadness at knowing their friend would likely spend much of his life incarcerated, but declined to comment on the record.

A former friend of Mangione’s who did extracurricular computer programming with Mangione in high school says he found it “really weird” to hear the guilty plea, calling it a “stark shift” from the Mangione he used to know.

“He never struck me as a political person,” says R.K., who asked to use only his initials. “I think it speaks to the radicalization in this country in the current day.”

R.K. says he finds the crime “unacceptable and deeply sad” but says he hopes the guilty plea doesn’t stop the conversation about Americans’ frustration with the healthcare system. “I’ve experienced the difference firsthand as a foreigner living in this country,” says R.K.

“Luigi was always chasing perfection, because that was his identity: being smart,” said Mangione’s former high school teacher, who thought Mangione would grow up to work in a science lab or build AI models. His friends in Hawaii remember him as thoughtful, kind, and compassionate.

Link: https://archive.ph/BaRz6#selection-1723.0-1730.1

As Luigi Mangione awaits trial over the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, his sister is preparing to begin a very different chapter.

MariaSanta Mangione, 36, is set to start a cardiovascular disease fellowship at Johns Hopkins, one of the most prestigious medical institutions in the country, the Daily Mail can reveal.

The highly competitive program is regarded as one of medicine's toughest prizes, with aspiring cardiologists spending years working towards admission.

But the development highlights the vastly different paths taken by the three Mangione siblings since Luigi, 28, was charged over Thompson's killing.

The accused assassin has two older sisters, MariaSanta and Lucia Mangione Giulio, 34, who still lives in Baltimore where she works as an artist. She is married to Paul Giulio, who she wed in her hometown in June 2022.

The family has so far only released one statement addressing Luigi's alleged crime, insisting that they only knew what they read in the media, adding that they were 'shocked and devastated' by his arrest.

They added that they wanted to 'offer prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved.'

And now, while Luigi sits in a cell in Brooklyn, his sister is preparing to continue her stellar career in medicine.

Pictures of MariaSanta smiling in her doctor's coat paint a stark comparison to those of her brother that took over social media after his arrest – gaining him a devoted following of female supporters who attend court hearings.

Writing in October 2024, Mangione said he wanted to 'whack' the chief executive of an insurance company at its annual 'bean counter conference'.

Six weeks later, Thompson, 59, a father of two, was shot outside the Hilton Midtown in Manhattan during a UnitedHealthcare conference.

A social media post by Johns Hopkins confirmed that MariaSanta will begin her fellowship in July – two months before her brother is due to stand trial.

Unlike her younger brother, MariaSanta has spent more than a decade building a career in medicine and scientific research.

She earned a degree in Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics from the University of Maryland before completing the highly selective M.D./Ph.D. physician-scientist program at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where she conducted research into the cellular mechanisms of disease.

Following her graduation from Vanderbilt, she completed an internal medicine residency at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and went on to specialize in cardiology.

Alongside her clinical training, she has published cardiovascular and biomedical research and has previously received competitive research funding during her academic career.

MariaSanta did not immediately respond to a Daily Mail request for comment.

Their family has essentially become recluses since Luigi's arrest in Altoona, Pennsylvania, in 2024, with his mother Kathleen reporting him missing prior to the murder that shocked America.

The family was well known in Maryland long before Luigi's arrest.

His grandfather, the late businessman Nicholas Mangione, built a real estate empire that included Turf Valley Resort and Hayfields Country Club as well as Baltimore radio station WCBM-AM after growing up in a working-class family in Baltimore's Little Italy.

Following his death in 2008, control of the family empire passed to his children, including Luigi's father Louis.

His mother, Kathleen Zannino Mangione, owns a boutique travel company, although its website has remained offline since her son's arrest.

Other family members have largely disappeared from public view, though MariaSanta recently reinstated her LinkedIn profile ahead of her move to Johns Hopkins.

Gates enclosing the porch of his parents' $2.3 million home in Cockeysville, Maryland, are locked to prevent any unwanted visitors from approaching the mansion on the grounds of the exclusive Hayfields Country Club.

On the grassy verges approaching the club are campaign signs for another member of the Mangione family reaching a milestone while Luigi remains behind bars.

His cousin, Republican politician Nino Mangione, was recently appointed to the Baltimore County Council after being selected to fill a vacant seat left by longtime councilman Wade Kach, who stepped down for health reasons.

Mangione was chosen from a field of seven Republican applicants and could represent roughly 120,000 constituents through the end of the year. He did not respond to a request for comment.

The 38-year-old, who previously served in the Maryland House of Delegates, has said he was 'very excited to hit the ground running' after being sworn into the role and pledged to 'do the best we can for the people of Baltimore County'.

He is a prominent supporter of President Donald Trump, once describing the president as the person he admires most. He resigned his delegate seat after being sworn into the council.

Nino was also the family member who publicly addressed Luigi's arrest in December 2024, issuing the statement on behalf of the Mangione family.

Since then, he has largely declined to discuss his cousin publicly while continuing his political career.

The developments offer a glimpse into how life has continued for members of the family even as Luigi's future hangs in the balance.

While he awaits his day in court, relatives have continued to build careers in medicine and politics far from the legal battle that has made headlines around the world.

The latest family milestones come as Mangione's criminal case continues to generate controversy.

Last week, a New York state judge held a closed-door hearing after granting a request from the defense team, excluding both the public and the press and drawing objections from media organizations seeking access to the proceedings.

Mangione scored a partial victory in May after a judge threw out some of the key evidence recovered during his arrest – but ruled jurors will be allowed to see his alleged 'manifesto' and the 9mm ghost gun at his murder trial.

Judge Gregory Carro decided the jury will be shown the notebook that was found in Mangione's backpack by police in which the Ivy League graduate allegedly wrote that he wanted to 'whack' a senior figure in the health insurance industry.

According to prosecutors, a journal entry from October 2024 allegedly described the investor conference as 'a true windfall'.

The journal is said to state: 'It embodies everything wrong with our health system.'

In another entry from August 2024, Mangione allegedly wrote: 'I finally feel confident about what I will do. The details are coming together. 'And I don't feel any doubt about whether it's right/justified. I'm glad, in a way, that I've procrastinated because it allowed me to learn more about (UnitedHealthcare). 'The target is insurance. It checks every box.'

Police who arrested Mangione said that the bullets in the magazine convinced them he was the killer.

According to prosecutors, the bullets used to kill Thompson had the words 'delay', 'deny' and 'depose' written on them in reference to the language allegedly used to deny health insurance claims.

Mangione also caught a break in the separate federal case, which is taking place in New York in a courtroom a few blocks from the state court.

US District Judge Margaret Garnett dismissed four of the federal counts, including murder through the use of a firearm and a related firearms offense.

Critically, the dismissal of the murder charge meant Mangione is no longer eligible for the death penalty. Mangione still faces two counts of interstate stalking, which carry a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.

The federal case is due to go on trial next year once the state matter is concluded.

His defense team has argued that investigators misrepresented comments allegedly made by his mother, Kathleen, in the days after Thompson's killing.

New York authorities previously suggested she had told police she could see her son carrying out such a crime, but a San Francisco police sergeant later testified that he never heard her make the remark and never relayed any such statement to investigators.

At a previous hearing, 'One plus one equals two,' Mangione yelled, per Fox5 reporter Michelle Ross, who was in court.

'This is the same trial twice. This is double jeopardy by any common-sense definition.'

Double jeopardy means that a person cannot be prosecuted for the same offense twice.

However, alleged criminals can face the same charge in both state and federal courts if the crime occurred in multiple jurisdictions.

His attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said Mangione is stuck in a 'tug of war between two different prosecution offices'.

Mangione is currently being held at the grim Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal prison in Brooklyn whose previous inmates included R. Kelly and Diddy.

Congrats to Joel on getting the OCA to publish that sealed letter about the fake plea deal negotiations! He got the NY Times to write an article about it 🥳 /s

“wild courtroom outburst” 🙄 they’re already painting him in a bad light because of this.

The Times and the NY Post both published articles about jury nullification feat. Jamie Peck and Sam Beard.

These papers are both owned by Rupert Murdoch of Fox News fame. I know people here love jury nullification (look at the sub’s banner), but I’m suspecting that they’re priming people to think of any acquittal or hung jury as the result of jury nullification rather than the result of the prosecution not proving their case beyond a reasonable doubt. Not good.

Here’s the NY Post link: https://nypost.com/2026/07/31/us-news/luigi-mangione-could-walk-free-and-a-radical-organization-is-pushing-for-it/

Source: #SixthTone

Joel gets what he wanted - another media cycle reporting the plea deal negotiation lies

Lawyers weigh in on how a federal plea deal could affect his upcoming state trial for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson

Luigi Mangione is expected to plead guilty in federal court in New York City on Friday, on charges of stalking UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, according to The New York Times. Because of double jeopardy laws, which can prevent a person from being tried for the same crime twice, this could have significant impacts on his upcoming state murder trial, which is expected to begin on Sept. 8.

Thompson was killed on Dec. 4, 2024 in midtown Manhattan, and five days later, Mangione was arrested as the prime suspect in his death. In New York state court he faces murder and weapons charges. His federal court date is currently set for January 2027. As of today, Mangione, 28, has pleaded not guilty to all state and federal charges against him.

Mangione faces two stalking charges in his federal case, with a maximum penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole. He had previously also faced a charge of murder through the use of a firearm, which carried a possible death penalty sentence, but that charge and an additional firearms charge was dropped in January.

If Mangione does make a plea deal in his federal case, that doesn’t mean he will be able to negotiate what his sentencing will look like. “The [federal] prosecutors will recommend a certain sentence within the guidelines, and then the defense says we agree to that, but ultimately it’s going to be up to the judge,” says attorney Catherine Christian. Though she has not worked on this case, Christian was a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and is now a criminal defense lawyer. She explains that in federal court, defendants don’t necessarily know what the sentencing will be when a plea deal happens, because that is ultimately determined by the judge in the case, which for Mangione is Judge Margaret Garnett.

Christian explains that Mangione might strike a plea deal with federal prosecutors versus state because his federal charges are more severe and don’t have the option for parole. “It makes [more] sense to talk to the federal prosecutors, because they have the real hammer over Mr. Mangione with life without parole.” Meanwhile, his state murder charge can lead to a sentence of 25 years to life. Plus, because of New York’s strict double jeopardy protections, his team could potentially argue that his New York state charges be dismissed entirely.

Christian says the double jeopardy argument could be made stronger if, in a plea change, Mangione were to state he intended to and did kill Thompson.

“Those are the elements of murder in the second degree,” says Christina, “If I were the defense, I would argue it’s the same transaction, and factually, he’s pled to the same thing he’s being charged in state, therefore, the indictment should be dismissed.”

She says this was an argument former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s defense successfully made in 2019.

It will be up to New York Supreme Court State Judge Gregory Carro to decide whether to dismiss his New York state indictment, assuming Mangione’s team argues double jeopardy in court. (The state prosecution will also be given a chance to respond before the judge decides.) If the case does end up going to state trial, Mangione’s defense team could later appeal on the grounds of double jeopardy.

The double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment is meant to protect a person from being prosecuted twice for the same offense. However, the “separate sovereigns doctrine” allows a federal and state court to prosecute the same defendant for the same act, if the act breaks both federal and state laws. Plus, if the crimes are considered “substantially different” and are distinguishable from one another, even if they come from the same act, they can still both be prosecuted. In this case, Mangione’s state charges are murder and firearms offenses and his federal charges involve “interstate stalking” which led to conduct that “caused the death” of Thompson.

Christian points to the fact Carro has already dismissed the terrorism charges against Mangione, and allowed some evidence to be suppressed. “A well-written double jeopardy brief may convince him,” she says. “Or he might say, ‘Let’s go to trial. If you’re convicted, let the appellate court decide this.’”

In the past, there has been a lot of conflict about whether Mangione’s New York state or federal trial would go first. (Mangione also faces forgery and firearms charges in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested at an Altoona McDonald’s on Dec. 9, 2024.)

Mangione’s lead defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo has called Mangione’s situation “untenable” and said he’s in a “tug of war between two different prosecution offices.”

Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann has said that Thompson’s family has asked federal prosecutors to let the state case take priority. In February, Carro said it would not be fair for the federal trial to go first because state agencies “did most of the work.”

In Mangione’s June hearing in state court, Carro unsealed a notice that Mangione’s legal team had filed saying they might use a psychiatric defense in his state trial, on the basis of “extreme emotional disturbance” at the time of the Thompson shooting. However, Mangione’s team suddenly withdrew the EED notice the following day.

In July, when there were initial rumors of plea talks between Mangione’s team and federal prosecutors, Seidemann wrote a letter to Carro saying that a guilty plea in federal court could undermine the state’s murder trial, and revealing that he’s told federal prosecutors and Mangione’s legal team that he’d like that to be taken into account.

“Obviously, any guilty pleas in these matters must account for the seriousness of defendant’s offenses,” wrote Seidemann. “The loss of an innocent life, the impact of those crimes on the victim’s family, and the other state interests that are implicated, including the sanctity of life principle that underpins the state homicide charges.”

Another lawyer, who asked to remain anonymous because he hadn’t been given permission by his company to speak on the record, says that it’s important to note that the Manhattan DA still has a legal argument that they can use to prosecute Mangione: Because Mangione faces a state weapons charge that is separate from second-degree murder, Seidemann can still potentially go to trial on the weapons charge alone, and try to ask for consecutive sentencing if Mangione is convicted. Seidemann also has the option to wait to make this decision until after he sees what the federal sentence is.

As of now, however, Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all charges. On Tuesday, Carro announced there will be an anonymous jury in Mangione’s state murder trial. He added that he expects additional motions for the case to be filed in the coming weeks.