Before Luigi Mangione happened, I never understood how all of those women ended up writing love letters to men accused and convicted of committing terrible crimes. But seeing it unfold in real time over the past two years, it’s really opened my eyes. In December 2024, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down on a New York City street. What followed was a days-long manhunt across two states, and eventually, Luigi was arrested. Once the internet identified Luigi, many people turned him into a pin-up. They raised money for his legal defense, they kept up with the updates for his multiple court appearances and on and on. Well, Luigi did something I didn’t expect: he accepted a plea deal and allocuted in open court.

The man charged with gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a New York City street nearly two years ago with a 3-D printed pistol pleaded guilty to federal stalking charges in Manhattan on Friday as Thompson’s family looked on.

In his allocution to the court, Luigi Mangione, 28, revealed for the first time that in 2024 he posed as a potential investor who managed over $50 billion in assets and emailed leadership at the insurance giant to confirm the location of the investors conference so he could track Thompson’s location.

“My travel to New York and email to UnitedHealthcare was with the intent to shoot Brian Thompson,” Mangione said in his statement. “On the morning of Dec. 4, 2024, I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died.”

The admitted gunman — who is Ivy League-educated and hails from a prominent Baltimore family — said he understood his actions “would place [Thompson] in fear of death or serious bodily injury” and that “I knew what I was doing was illegal.”

Mangione also told the judge that he was driven to kill Thompson because of his experience with the healthcare system as a patient with a back injury. Prosecutors have previously said that Mangione had no personal connection to UnitedHealthcare and he was never a customer.

In his statement, Mangione mocked the healthcare industry, citing UnitedHealthcare’s reply to his investment ruse. “Unlike my previous interactions with insurers, I received an immediate response within an hour,” Mangione said.

Thompson’s family issued a rare public statement after the plea hearing, calling it “an important step toward justice for Brian and for our family.”

“While nothing will ease the pain of losing him, we are grateful that the federal justice system has held the person responsible for this heinous act accountable,” the statement said. “Now we look to the court to ensure that sentencing reflects the severity of this crime.”

Mangione faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and prosecutors suggested that his sentencing range under federal guidelines would be 24 to 30 years in prison. Prosecutors later clarified that they would be recommending life in prison, the steepest sentence available. He will be sentenced at a separate hearing on Dec. 18 and the final sentence will be determined by the judge, who has full discretion.

[From NBC News]

Since I went to Law & Order University, my first guess was that Luigi agreed to a plea to take the death penalty off the table. But…the federal judge already tossed out the two death-penalty counts, so if convicted of the two counts to which he just pled guilty, he still would have been sentenced to life in prison. Why not just take a chance at trial then?? So now my guess is that his lawyers understood that the federal case against him was pretty strong, so they convinced him to plead guilty. As for his allocution… yeah. The bit about posing as an investor is especially damning (for all involved).

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.