U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi directs prosecutors to seek death penalty for Luigi Mangione

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Tuesday (April 1, 2025) that she had instructed federal prosecutors to pursue capital punishment against Luigi Mangione, who stands accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City last December.

“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 issued by the Department of Justice.

“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,” the attorney general said.

Karen Agnifilo, who represents Mangione, strongly criticized Bondi’s ruling.

“By seeking to murder Luigi Mangione, the Justice Department has moved from the dysfunctional to the barbaric,” Agnifilo said in a statement.

“Their decision to execute Luigi is political and goes against the recommendation of the local federal prosecutors, the law, and historical precedent,” the attorney said.

“While claiming to protect against murder, the federal government moves to commit the premeditated, state-sponsored murder of Luigi,” Agnifilo said.

“By doing this, they are defending the broken, immoral, and murderous healthcare industry that continues to terrorize the American people.”

The attorney general’s decision came over two months after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office calling for reinstating federal executions. The order instructed the attorney general to “pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use.”

The Justice Department under Biden’s leadership halted federal executions in mid-2021.

In February, U.S. District Judge Katherine Parker assigned a death penalty specialist to join Mangione’s defense team after the Federal Defenders of New York requested assistance.

Mangione, aged 26, faces federal prosecution in Manhattan’s U.S. District Court on multiple charges including murder, stalking, and weapons violations connected to Thompson’s killing outside the Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan on December 4.

Thompson, who led America’s largest health insurance provider, was entering the hotel for a UnitedHealth Group investor meeting when the incident occurred.

Law enforcement captured Mangione five days later at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. During his arrest, police discovered him carrying a handgun, silencer, ammunition, counterfeit identification documents, and a U.S. passport.

Mangione remains in custody without bail and hasn’t entered a plea for the federal charges yet.

In Manhattan Supreme Court, a state-level trial court in New York, he has pleaded not guilty to murder and additional charges. If convicted in the state case, he could receive life imprisonment without parole, as New York state has abolished capital punishment.

The DOJ, in its statement Tuesday, said that Thompson’s “murder was an act of political violence.”

“Mangione’s actions involved substantial planning and premeditation and because the murder took place in public with bystanders nearby, may have posed grave risk of death to additional persons,” the statement said.

Federal prosecutors revealed that the University of Pennsylvania graduate had allegedly plotted Thompson’s assassination to ignite public discourse about America’s healthcare system.

Agnifilo, in her statement, said, “We are prepared to fight these federal charges, brought by a lawless Justice Department, as well as the New York State charges, and the Pennsylvania charges, and anything else they want to pile on Luigi.”

“This is a corrupt web of government dysfunction and one-upmanship. Luigi is caught in a high-stakes game of tug-of-war between state and federal prosecutors, except the trophy is a young man’s life,” Agnifilo said.