NEW YORK (AP) — Attorneys for Luigi Mangione say Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision to seek the death penalty against him in the slaying of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was influenced 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 the federal prosecution of Mangione 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 will bar prosecutors from seeking the death penalty and have some charges dropped. A hearing is scheduled for January 9.
By getting involved in the death penalty decision and making public statements suggesting Mangione deserved to be executed, Bondi violated an oath he took before taking office in February to abide by ethics regulations and recuse himself from matters involving Ballard’s clients for a year, Mangione’s lawyers said.
They alleged that Bondi continued to profit from her work for Ballard — and indirectly from her work for UnitedHealth Group — through a profit-sharing agreement with the lobbying firm and a defined contribution plan she administers.
The “very person” charged with seeking Mangione’s death “has a financial stake in the case he is pursuing,” his lawyers wrote. Her conflict of interest “should have caused her to recuse herself from making any decision in this case,” they added.
Messages seeking comment were left for the Justice Department and Ballard Partners.
Bondi announced in April that he was directing federal prosecutors in Manhattan to seek the death penalty, saying even before Mangione was formally charged that the death penalty was warranted for “a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”
Thompson, 50, was killed on Dec. 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 “filing” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
Mangione, 27, the Ivy League-educated scion 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 felony charges. State charges carry the possibility of life in prison. No trial has been scheduled.
Friday’s filing put the spotlight back on Mangione’s federal case, a day after a marathon preliminary hearing ended in his fight to bar prosecutors from his state 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 intent to “smack” a health insurance executive. A decision is not expected until May.
Mangione’s defense team, led by husband-and-wife duo Karen Friedman-Agnifilo and Marc Agnifilo, focused on Bondi’s past lobbying work, trying to get U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett to rule out the death penalty, drop some charges and exclude the same evidence they want suppressed from the state.
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 television appearance — showed the decision was based on politics, not merit. They also said her remarks tainted the grand jury trial that led to his indictment weeks later.
Bondi’s statements and other official actions — including a highly choreographed killer walk that saw Mangione led by armed officers onto a Manhattan pier and the Trump administration’s violation of established death penalty procedures — “violated Mr. Mangione’s constitutional and statutory rights and seriously prejudiced this death penalty case,” his lawyers said.
In a court filing last month, federal prosecutors argued that “pretrial publicity, even if extensive, is not itself a constitutional defect.”
Instead of dismissing the case or barring the government from seeking the death penalty, prosecutors argued, the defense’s concerns can best be alleviated by carefully questioning potential jurors about their knowledge of the case and making sure Mangione’s rights are respected at trial.
“What the defendant rejects as a constitutional crisis is merely a repackaging of arguments” rejected in earlier cases, prosecutors said. “No one justifies the dismissal of the indictment or the categorical exclusion of a penalty authorized by Congress.”
Mangione’s attorneys said they want to investigate Bondi’s ties to Ballard and the company’s relationship with UnitedHealth Group, and will seek various materials, including details of Bondi’s compensation from the firm, any direction she gave Justice Department employees about the case or UnitedHealthcare, and sworn testimony from “all individuals with personal knowledge of the relevant matters.”