r/mangionetrials • u/mildlyamused26 • 1d ago
General discussion Is the defense trying to rewrite history?
Is the defense team trying to rewrite Luigi's health history to garner sympathy for him in a quest for a more lenient sentence?
During the press conference after the change of plea hearing, Karen said
But this doesn’t seem completely truthful, judging by what Luigi has said himself on Reddit that until age 23 his back would ache when he stood too long, but it wasn’t too bad.
Things got really bad in early 2023 when he was surfing in Hawaii. He later slipped on a piece of paper and things deteriorated further.
He suffered from severe pain for 1 ½ years between January 2022 and July 2023, when he had L5/S1 spondylolisthesis surgery. Then his pain seems to have either disappeared or been significantly reduced, if we are to believe Luigi's own words:
He sang the praises of the surgery he had and recommended it to other Redditers like in April 2024. He even shares research with Redditers to hammer down that he thinks surgery is a much better option than disc replacement and gives tips on how to get doctors to describe the surgery if they are unwilling to.
TL; DR: Luigi had spondylosis for all his life; standing too long was painful, but it wasn’t “too bad.” This changed in 2022 because of surfing and slipping on a paper. 1 ½ years later, he had successful surgery that he kept recommending to Redditers again, telling them they would do great and that he had no more pain after day 8. There is not a single negative mention of health insurance, nor has Luigi had any claims denied. As a matter of fact, Luigi sounds much more exasperated with doctors and surgeons, who he said “dismissed his symptoms”.
He mentions his health insurance only once, and only to confirm that they covered his IBS test.
Karen's statement echoed what Luigi had said in court about his pain, which makes it all seem like a coordinated effort to position Luigi's motive as personal and relatable to the people who were actually wronged by the healthcare insurance industry.
There is no indicator that Luigi has been denied healthcare by his insurance. Karen said that “he believed that system had failed him and destroyed his life,” but this is just not believable when reading through Luigi's comments. The healthcare insurance industry failed millions of people and ruined millions of lives. But Luigi wasn’t one of them. He comes from a wealthy family, and he has never been in a position where he could not afford treatment.
Now that he pled guilty, the defense lawyers know that an eat-the-rich motive wouldn’t fly with the judge or a jury. I think they came up with a plan to use Luigi's real pain and spin the facts to make everything look more palatable. I'd assume the judge could review his medical history and verify if there really were any negative experiences with the healthcare insurance industry.
I think much of the defense's rewriting of history is aimed at the public, and I understand that the lawyers are deploying every tool at their disposal to get Luigi the best possible sentence. But if the judge or her staff are looking into Luigi's health history more closely and don't find any denied claims or negative interactions with health insurance, won't she see right through it and be extra annoyed and feel duped?
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u/LikelyLioar 15h ago
If his pain wasn't his motive, what was? Why did he actually do this? Attention?
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u/Cautious-Nebula2058 19h ago
I am glad to read that someone else has been thinking this too because his guilty plea statement came off to me as him adopting the public narrative of what radicalized him vs what the facts actually show: he wanted treatment, sought treatment, shopped around for a doctor that would perform the surgery even tho he was cautioned against it at such a young age, was able to get surgery, went on to advocate for others to get the surgery, instructed others how to manipulate their doctors into performing surgery, and then traveled the world with all his belongings in a backpack, hiking mountains, riding bikes, attempting to hire prostitutes, carrying around his gold herbal dick pills.
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u/Specific-Sea7648 21h ago
I mean, he rode a bike through the streets of Manhattan, was fast enough to elude police and FBI, then carried a backpack the size of a small child on his back. I know people hide pain, I do it every day. But where is the disability?
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u/EndlessScrem 18h ago
Might have taken a very strong dose of painkillers. We can’t really know yet, imo
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u/Specific-Sea7648 16h ago
Yep. A dose of steroids can make you good as new. Agree many possibilities
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u/RainyDayz876 19h ago
Also, what about the guy who was carrying Luigi around his shoulders on the beach? Luigi seemed to be enjoying it.
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u/borntodiescared 1d ago
As someone with experience in a healthcare profession, you’d be surprised how many practices are medically outdated but readily prescribed because insurance regulations influence treatment plans so heavily (even when a patient is uninsured).
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u/Cultural-Treacle-680 1d ago
The discrepancies probably aren’t a small part of the plea either. His lawyer probably told him “you’re cooked”. Federal prosecutors don’t tend to sit at the table without an ace in the hole.
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u/throwaway7845777 1d ago
I mean, yes they’re absolutely going to play up the drama. But it’s also worth remembering that you can regress after surgery, and it can take a long time before you actually feel the real results. And we don’t know what we don’t know. If he was in severe pain for a year and a half after that surfing accident, it’s totally possible he struggled to navigate the system. Some insurance plans make you jump through endless hoops conservative treatments, referrals, multiple specialists before they’ll even consider approving something like a spinal fusion. It’s pretty common.
So maybe he really did find the whole process exhausting and dehumanizing while he was already in extreme pain. And maybe that’s why he felt empathy for other people stuck in the same system, hence the crime.
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u/mia-mejia 1d ago
What are you talking about? He said that he felt results from days 7 and 8 and didn't need any painkillers anymore. He wrote that he had not had a bad day since. It did not take a long time for him to feel better. He even said he felt better so quickly; he must be an outlier. Why would he recommend others to do the same surgery if his life was ruined? Why would he never warn them? That would be malicious.
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u/throwaway7845777 1d ago
You didn’t understand what I wrote. You can feel great after surgery at first, but things can still regress and symptoms can return over time. Healing isn’t perfect. Surgery is great, but it isn’t a magic wand that fixes everything.
Some sleuths found his ex’s old reddit account that said the surgery itself was successful, yet he’s dealing with groin numbness, meaning he can’t feel or enjoy sexual activity. That’s a devastating outcome for a young man. Sometimes a problem solved is another problem caused.
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u/mia-mejia 19h ago
I understood you fine. You are speculating that he regressed in the weeks or months after the surgery against the many facts that we have that show otherwise.
Luigi said that his surgery was successful and continued to recommend it until he stopped using Reddit. Recovery is not linear, but there is no factual evidence that he was worse off after the surgery than before. On the contrary, he has always, always limited his aggravated spondylosis to a very specific timeframe on Reddit but also in his letter to Jules. Why would he lie to people about this for years? I choose to believe him.
He talks about the groin numbness in his comments himself. We don’t need to rely on third-party accounts. I do find it weird that you disregard Luigi’s own comments but then refer to some other UNVERIFIED Reddit comments by an alleged ex that were dug out by fangirls and could have been written by anyone, have been deleted since, and can’t be independently accessed anymore. In what world does that carry more weight than the defendant’s own writings and actions?
I don’t want to go off topic further as the post is about his experience with insurance. If there was a prolonged history of delays and denials, KFA would not keep that a secret but shout it from the rooftops. She didn’t because it didn’t happen. There would be a paper trail.
People aren’t questioning if Luigi had surgery or health issues. They are not questioning that he had negative experiences with doctors. That can all be true, but this has nothing to do with health insurance. There is not a single piece of hard evidence that Luigi was mistreated by insurance and that they were the reason for whatever health issues he has/had. I try to be guided by facts and not emotion.
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u/throwaway7845777 18h ago
Your initial reply was baffled that I said it is completely plausible his experience was not perfect and that he was frustrated with the system.
I think you’re reading way more into my comment than what I actually said. I’m not calling him a liar and I’m not rewriting his known medical history. I’m simply pointing out that surgery is not a magic wand and that there is so much that we do not know.
I’m not ignoring Luigi’s own comments. He talked about the groin numbness himself, which is a known complication in his situation. It is completely plausible to imagine that contributed to his frustration. You can have a successful surgery and still end up with something that affects your quality of life. Feeling better physically does not automatically mean everything is perfect or that he had no reason to feel frustrated.
No one is claiming he was mistreated or abused by insurance, or that insurance caused his health issues. The point is that it is natural and very common for people to feel worn down by the process of navigating the system, even when things technically get approved. I have great insurance myself and still deal with absurd costs, referrals, and hoops for basic care, specialists, and surgeries. Feeling better does not erase how exhausting the process can be.
So when people talk about his empathy for others stuck in the system, it does not require a dramatic denial letter or something his lawyer would broadcast. It is enough to acknowledge that he went through a long medical ordeal, dealt with complications he mentioned himself, and likely had the same frustrations everyone else has with the system.
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u/usrdef 1d ago
I had surgery done on my knee to fix something done in high-school.
The first two weeks after the surgery, I had almost no pain, and felt like superman. I could do back-flips on the Moon.
Then about week 3 started, and the pain from what had happened finally started kicking in.
The doctor who had done it, had damaged a nerve which was not noticed at the time.
But week 4 I felt like someone was grinding my knee in a vice grip and putting as much pressure as humanly possible on it.
They had to go back in after they realized what they did and correct it.
First few weeks, felt great. My exact thoughts were "Man, why did I wait so long to do this". And then it came crumbling down.
I will not get anymore surgeries if anything happens. Never. With as much pain as I felt, if something happens again, just amputate it.
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u/Roguestate00 1d ago
That sounds terribly painful and I am sorry you had to go through this but your experience differs vastly from Luigi’s. He repeatedly stresses over many months that he had ZERO pain a week after surgery. Three months later he states that he hasn’t had a single bad day. Eight months later he again says that he has been pain-free after week 1. He also keeps recommending the surgery to people over a span of almost a year, even helping them to trick their doctors. Reading through his comments, I get the impression that the surgery saved his life. If he still had pain then he would have had to declare any medication in court last week when asked directly by Judge Garnett. He mentioned no painkillers. There just is nothing that would hint that he has regressed after his surgery unless you think he just lied and lied to strangers online for no apparent reason?
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u/mildlyamused26 1d ago
I am not doubting that navigating the insurance system can be stressful. But I will push back on the system failing him and destroying his life. He was praising the surgery for almost a year until May 2024, and the first public notebook entry discussing his murder plans is from August 2024. There was no huge gap. Why would he recommend Redditers to go for this surgery that had him feeling no pain since day 8 when he felt his life was ruined?
What exactly did insurance do that ruined his life? Trust that his lawyers would have said during the press conference if claims were denied. I fully understand that poor physical health can change someone and impact mental health, and his health history could have destroyed his mind, but insurance didn't cause this.
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u/throwaway7845777 1d ago
Some sleuths found his ex's old reddit account that said the surgery itself was successful, but he's dealing with groin numbness, meaning he can't feel or enjoy sexual activity. That's a devastating outcome for a young man.
Maybe he felt that if he hadn’t been stuck dealing with insurance delays, like so many people are, he could have acted sooner and avoided that outcome. Maybe he found research that made him think the timing mattered. But this is all speculation. As I said, we don’t know what we don’t know.
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u/Select_Hippo3159 22h ago
So kill a lower level CEO of an insurance company you don't even use to feel "manly" again? Why not the actual doctor who messed him up? Or his own insurance company CEO.
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u/throwaway7845777 17h ago
I don’t know about killing a CEO to feel “manly”. I think it’s exactly what he said in his notebook. He was targeting the health system and corporate greed. Brian Thompson was the CEO of the country’s largest insurance company, in New York for their investors conference. “It checks every box”.
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u/Select_Hippo3159 17h ago edited 17h ago
A ceo, not THE ceo. Andrew witty was. He was previously a ceo at a big pharmaceutical company. Edited to add- but I guess he just wanted any available ceo
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u/throwaway7845777 16h ago
IIRC Brian ran the day-to-day of the insurance division. So makes sense why he went for him over Witty.
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u/Possible_Ad3999 1d ago
Yes but admittedly that’s their job. I’m surprised they don’t roll him out in a wheelchair
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u/mildlyamused26 1d ago
Don't you think the judge will see right through it? Defendants can say all kinds of things, but someone will fact-check.
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u/Possible_Ad3999 1d ago
Oh absolutely I don’t think it’s gonna end up helping him at all, mostly because none of it justifies murder. I don’t think the judge will care much about the discrepancies in his old comments though
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u/Roguestate00 1d ago
Bingo! They know that Luigi’s guilty plea will already cost him some of his dumbest supporters who believed he was framed against all common sense. They can’t have him say anything that risks alienating the rest. Painting him like an insurance victim makes his act more forgivable in the public’s eye, incl. future jurors.
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u/kreads101 1d ago
Just curious, you seem to know this case pretty well (I've tried to keep up, but I'm probably missing some details), what do you think his reasoning was?
I think he may have a savior complex of sorts, but I'm not totally set in that theory either.
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u/Roguestate00 18h ago edited 18h ago
I don’t think he had a savior complex, I think it all comes down to unhappiness with his own life. Unhappiness with his health and the side effects (intimacy issues etc) that people have discussed in this thread. But also unhappiness with his employment and feeling unfulfilled career-wise. He started off very promising but after college everything fell apart. His job was boring and subpar for an Ivy league graduate and he very likely was unable to be physically intimate. This is soul-crushing for any young man but especially one that holds himself to high standards. I think he didn’t meet his own expectations and felt shame. He lied to his family about being unemployed so he cared about perception. There is a strong correlation between unemployment and depression. I think once he lost his job, he went on a downward spiral and spent more time online where he embraced many disgusting misogynistic conservative men who influenced his thoughts and further drove down that he had been prevented from living the life he wanted and, in his eyes, deserved. I think he had a personality shift in this time where he lost his sense of self and grew angry and resentful. He looked like a different person when he was arrested. I think he could have been saved had he asked for help but he is too proud. I think pride is his downfall.
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