‘I shot him’: Luigi Mangione pleads guilty to killing United Healthcare CEO, sentencing on Dec 18
Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty on Friday in federal court in New York to stalking charges connected to the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. He admitted that he shot the executive outside a Manhattan hotel in December 2024, resolving one of the two criminal cases against him.Speaking so quickly that the judge asked him to slow down, Mangione told the court: “I shot Mr Thompson, and he died. I knew what I was doing was illegal.”The guilty plea marks a major development in the prosecution of Mangione, who had previously pleaded not guilty in both his federal and state cases.Following Friday’s plea, his lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the New York state murder case on double jeopardy grounds. Mangione is scheduled to be sentenced in the federal case on 18 December, while the state trial had been due to begin next month.
Thompson was shot outside Manhattan hotel
Thompson, 50, was shot and killed on December 4, 2024 outside the New York Hilton Midtown as he walked to UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference. Prosecutors say Mangione waited in the area for about an hour before ambushing him and then fled through Central Park and across Manhattan before leaving the city.Mangione was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 375 kilometres west of New York City. Police said he initially used a fake identity before identifying himself as Luigi Mangione. Investigators recovered a 3D-printed pistol that prosecutors say matched the weapon used in the shooting, along with a notebook containing references to wanting to “wack” a health insurance executive.
Death penalty bid was later dropped
The federal case had previously exposed Mangione to the possibility of the death penalty after then-US Attorney General Pam Bondi directed prosecutors to pursue capital punishment, calling the killing “a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America” and “an act of political violence.” However, in January 2026, US District Judge Margaret Garnett barred federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty and dismissed the federal murder charge that had enabled them to pursue capital punishment.
State murder trial still ahead
In the parallel state proceedings, Judge Gregory Carro dismissed terrorism charges against Mangione in September 2025, rejecting prosecutors’ argument that the killing was “intended to evoke terror.” The ruling removed the most serious state charges but left second-degree murder and other counts in place.Mangione had argued that being tried in both federal and state courts amounted to unfair duplication. In a court appearance earlier this year, he told Judge Carro, “It’s the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition.”
Investigation tracked Mangione
The investigation began shortly after the shooting, when surveillance footage captured the gunman outside the Hilton. Prosecutors say Mangione had arrived in New York on November 24, 2024, stayed in a hostel using a fake New Jersey driver’s licence under the name Mark Rosario, and travelled around the area where Thompson was later killed. Police later recovered a backpack discarded in Central Park containing Monopoly money and a black Tommy Hilfiger jacket.Mangione’s federal guilty plea brings one chapter of the case to a close, but the separate New York state murder trial over the killing of Brian Thompson is due to begin next month.
