U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Tuesday she has directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione, the man accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a New York City hotel on Dec. 4.
Mangione, 26, faces separate federal and state murder charges for the killing, which rattled the business community while also galvanizing health insurance critics. The federal charges include murder through use of a firearm, which carries the possibility of the death penalty. The state charges carry a maximum punishment of life in prison.
Prosecutors have said the two cases will proceed on parallel tracks, with the state charges expected to go to trial first. It wasn’t immediately clear if Bondi’s death penalty announcement will change the order of how the cases are tried.
“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. “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.”
A message seeking comment was left for a spokesperson for Mangione’s lawyers.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to a state indictment and has not entered a plea to the federal charges.
President Donald Trump, who oversaw an unprecedented run of executions at the end of his first term, signed an executive order on his first day back in office on Jan. 20 that compels the Justice Department to seek the death penalty in federal cases where applicable.
His predecessor, Joe Biden, had issued a moratorium on federal executions.
Thompson, 50, was ambushed and shot on a sidewalk as he walked to an investor conference at a hotel in midtown Manhattan.
Mangione was arrested Dec. 9 while eating breakfast at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Police said he was carrying a gun that matched the one used in the shooting and a fake ID. He also was carrying a notebook expressing hostility toward the health insurance industry and especially wealthy executives, authorities said.
UnitedHealthcare is the largest health insurer in the U.S., though the company said Mangione was never a client.
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.
