NEW YORK (AP) — Luigi Mangione’s lawyers say Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision to seek the death penalty in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was tainted by her previous work as a lobbyist at a firm that represented the insurer’s parent company.
Bondi was a partner at Ballard Partners before leading the Justice Department’s charge to turn Mangione’s federal prosecution into a capital case, creating a “profound conflict of interest” that violated his due process rights, his lawyers wrote in a court filing late Friday. They want prosecutors barred from seeking the death penalty and some charges dismissed. A hearing is scheduled for January 9.
By getting involved in the death penalty decision and making public statements suggesting Mangione deserved execution, Bondi broke a promise she made before taking office in February that she would follow ethical regulations and recuse herself from matters involving Ballard clients for a year, Mangione’s lawyers said.
They claimed that Bondi continued to profit from her work for Ballard — and, indirectly, from her work for UnitedHealth Group — through a profit-sharing arrangement with the lobbying firm and a defined contribution plan she manages.
The “very person” who has the power to seek Mangione’s death “has a financial stake in the case that is being prosecuted,” his lawyers wrote. Her conflict of interest “should have led her to recuse herself from making any decisions about this case,” they added.
Messages seeking comment were left for the Justice Department and Ballard Partners.
Bondi announced in April that she was directing Manhattan federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty, declaring even before Mangione was formally charged that capital punishment was warranted for a “premeditated, cold-blooded murder that shocked America.”
Thompson, 50, was killed on December 4, 2024, while walking to a Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind. Police say “delay,” “denial” and “deposit” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
Mangione, 27, an Ivy League-educated son of a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan. He has pleaded not guilty to federal and state murder charges. The state charges carry the possibility of life in prison. No trial was scheduled.
Friday’s filing put the spotlight back on Mangione’s federal case a day after a marathon pretrial hearing ended in his fight to bar prosecutors in his state case from using certain evidence found during his arrest, such as a gun that police said matched the one used to kill Thompson and a notebook in which he allegedly described his intention to “wack” an insurance executive. of health. Sentencing is not expected until May.
Mangione’s defense team, led by the husband-and-wife duo of Karen Friedman-Agnifilo and Marc Agnifilo, convinced US District Judge Margaret Garnett to rule out capital punishment, dismiss some charges and exclude the same evidence they want to suppress from the state’s case.
In a September court filing, Mangione’s lawyers argued that Bondi’s announcement that she was ordering prosecutors to seek the death penalty — which she followed up with Instagram posts and a TV appearance — showed that the decision was “based on politics, not merit.” They also said that her remarks fueled the grand jury trial that resulted in his indictment a few weeks later.
Bondi’s statements and other official actions — including a highly choreographed perp walk that saw Mangione lead a Manhattan pier by armed officers, and the Trump administration’s violation of established death penalty procedures — “violated Mr. Mangione’s constitutional and statutory rights and fatally prejudiced this death penalty case,” his lawyers said.
In a court filing last month, federal prosecutors argued that “pretrial publicity, even when intense, is not itself a constitutional defect.”
Instead of dismissing the case entirely or barring the government from seeking the death penalty, prosecutors argued, the defense’s concerns could best be mitigated by carefully questioning prospective jurors about their knowledge of the case and ensuring that Mangione’s rights are respected at trial.
“What the defendant reframes as a constitutional crisis is simply a repackaging of arguments” rejected in previous cases, prosecutors said. “Nothing justifies the dismissal of the charge or the categorical preclusion of a penalty authorized by Congress.”
Mangione’s lawyers said they want to investigate Bondi’s ties to Ballard and the firm’s relationship with UnitedHealth Group and will request various materials, including details of Bondi’s compensation from the firm, any direction she gave to Justice Department employees about the case or UnitedHealthcare, and sworn testimony from “all individuals with personal knowledge of the relevant matters.”