HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. – The suspect in the murder of UnitedHealthcare's CEO is returning to New York to face murder charges after agreeing to his extradition Thursday during a court appearance in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested last week after five days on the run.
Luigi Mangione waived his right to an extradition hearing and was immediately turned over to at least a dozen New York Police Department officers who were in the courtroom and quickly led him to a waiting SUV.
Mangione glanced back and forth as he was led outside to begin his journey to New York, but he quietly climbed into the SUV, drawing a contrast from his last court appearance when he tussled with deputies and shouted at reporters.
He then boarded a small NYPD plane and flew to the New York area.
Blair County Dist. Atty. Pete Weeks had said he wanted to turn Mangione over to New York authorities as quickly as possible. Weeks said he was willing to put the charges in Pennsylvania on hold.
“He’s in their care now. “He will travel to New York to await trial or prosecution of his murder and related charges in New York,” Weeks said.
The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate is accused of ambushing and shooting CEO Brian Thompson on Dec. 4 outside a Manhattan hotel where the head of the nation's largest health insurance company was attending an investor conference.
Authorities said Mangione had the gun used to kill Thompson, a passport, fake IDs and about $10,000 when he was arrested Dec. 9 while having breakfast at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Mangione, who had initially resisted extradition attempts, made two brief court appearances on Thursday and initially waived a preliminary hearing on the forgery and firearms charges before agreeing to be sent back to New York.
There he is accused of murder as an act of terrorism and faces life imprisonment without parole if convicted.
Investigators believe Mangione was motivated by anger at the US health care system and corporate greed. However, according to the insurer, he was never a customer of UnitedHealthcare.
The killing sparked a flood of stories of resentment toward U.S. health insurance companies and also rocked corporate America after some social media users described the shooting as revenge.
Video of the attack showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson, 50, from behind and then firing several more shots. The suspect eluded police, although authorities widely distributed photos of his unmasked face until Mangione was arrested in Altoona, about 280 miles west of New York.
Mangione, a computer science graduate born into a prominent Maryland family, carried a handwritten letter in which he called health insurance “parasitic” and complained about corporate greed, according to a law enforcement bulletin, that the Associated Press obtained last week.
One of his lawyers has warned the public not to prejudge the case.
Mangione repeatedly posted on social media about how spinal surgery last year had relieved his chronic back pain and encouraged people with similar conditions to speak up for themselves when they were told they would just have to live with it.
In a Reddit post in April, he advised someone with back problems to seek additional opinions from surgeons and, if necessary, say that the pain made it impossible to work.
“We live in a capitalist society,” Mangione wrote. “I have found that the medical community responds to these keywords with much more urgency than you do when it comes to describing excruciating pain and its impact on your quality of life.”
He had apparently cut himself off from his family and close friends in recent months. His family reported him missing in San Francisco in November. His relatives said in a statement they were “shocked and devastated” by his arrest.
Thompson, who grew up on a farm in Iowa, trained as an accountant. A married father of two students, he had worked at giant UnitedHealth Group for 20 years and became CEO of the insurance division in 2021.
Associated Press writer Scolforo reported from Hollidaysburg and AP writer Sisak reported from New York. AP writer Mike Rubinkam in Allentown, Pennsylvania., and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed to this report.
