Luigi Mangione expected to plead guilty to a federal stalking charge

Aug. 13 (UPI) — Luigi Mangione is expected to plead guilty Friday to a federal charge in a Manhattan federal court, where he faces charges of stalking resulting in the death of a UnitedHealthcare CEO in 2024.

Mangione’s federal trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 5, and jury selection in the state case is scheduled to begin Sept. 8.

Mangione, 28, is accused of the shooting death of Thompson, 50, on a Manhattan street outside a Midtown hotel on Dec. 4, 2024. He was arrested several days later at an Altoona, Pa., McDonald’s.

Mangione is scheduled to appear in the federal court Friday for a pretrial conference with Judge Margaret Garnett. The defense and prosecution requested the hearing in a court filing Tuesday.

If Mangione pleads guilty to the stalking charge, his attorneys are likely to argue that he can’t be prosecuted for murder in the state court because of double jeopardy, The New York Times reported.

In January, Garnett dismissed two federal criminal charges against Mangione. One accused him of murder through the use of a firearm during stalking. That charge was eligible for the death penalty.

The two federal charges that remain are interstate stalking resulting in death and stalking through the use of interstate facilities resulting in death. Each charge carries a possible life sentence.

New York does not have the death penalty.

If the plea happens, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg’s office could argue that the state and federal charges address different harms and therefore the state prosecution could continue.

State prosecutor Joel Seidemann sent a letter on July 2 to New York Judge Gregory Carro saying that if Mangione pleaded guilty to the federal charge, his office would object if the defense “would operate to defeat a just outcome in the state prosecution.”

Seidemann said the office would ask Garnett to “consider that fact in deciding whether to accept that plea.”

“Any guilty pleas in these matters must account for the seriousness of [the] defendant’s offenses, the loss of an innocent life, the impact of those crimes on the victim’s family,” Seidemann wrote.

Mangione’s defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo has argued that the dual prosecutions violated his Fifth Amendment rights.

In a motion filed in Manhattan State Supreme Court, the defense called the dueling prosecutions “so constitutionally fraught that we are hard-pressed to find precedent for such an unprecedented situation.”