Luigi Mangione, the man accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson, returned to a Manhattan courtroom Friday for a crucial hearing where his defense attorneys argued for a judge to toss out two of the four federal counts against him.
Judge Margaret Garnett said she will consider whether to dismiss one count of murder through use of a firearm, which carries a maximum potential sentence of death, and one count known as a firearms offense. The federal criminal complaint also charges Mangione, 27, with two stalking counts.
He has pleaded not guilty.
Mangione’s lawyers have argued in court filings that federal prosecutors prejudiced his case by turning his December 2024 arrest into a “scene out of a Marvel movie” and portraying him as a “shackled monster” who deserved the death penalty.
The prosecution has rejected that premise, saying the charges against him are suitable.
Garnett denied the defense’s request for an evidentiary hearing, but indicated she might change her mind. She tentatively scheduled the start of jury selection for Sept. 8, followed by opening statements as early as October, but that timetable may not hold.
The accused killer, who appeared in court Friday in olive-colored prison scrubs, separately faces nine counts in a case brought by New York state prosecutors, including second-degree murder and various weapons charges. He has pleaded not guilty in that case, too.
In the lead-up to Friday’s hearing, federal prosecutors forcefully pushed back on Mangione’s team’s assertion that Attorney General Pam Bondi should recuse herself from his federal case because of what they characterized as her “profound” conflict of interest.
In a six-page filing Wednesday, Deputy U.S. Attorney Sean Buckley said Bondi no longer has a financial interest in Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm that counts UnitedHealthcare as a client.
He said nothing in Bondi’s financial disclosure form suggests any “ongoing income, distributions, partnership draws, or remuneration from Ballard Partners in any form.”
Buckley said Mangione’s lawyers have likewise not shown that Bondi’s decision to authorize the death penalty against their client was influenced in any way by her relationship with Ballard, where Bondi worked as a lobbyist following her two terms as Florida attorney general.
Mangione stands accused of fatally shooting Thompson on Dec. 4, 2024, outside the New York Hilton Midtown hotel as the executive was on his way to an investors conference. The killing drew national attention and set off a frantic five-day manhunt across the Northeast.
Police officers arrested Mangione inside a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Dec. 9, 2024, in an encounter that was recorded on body camera video.
Authorities have said Mangione was carrying a backpack containing a ghost gun, fake IDs, a notebook and other writings detailing his grievances against the private health care system in the U.S.
Investigators found a three-page handwritten document that referred to the health care industry and included the phrase “these parasites simply had it coming,” law enforcement sources previously told NBC News.
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