At a pre-trial hearing on Monday, a prison guard testified that Luigi Mangione, the 27-year-old who is accused of killing the chief executive of the biggest health insurer in the country in December of this year, had a 3D-printed gun in his backpack.
In a court in New York City, prosecutors will be able to use the evidence against Mangione, who is accused of shooting the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
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The guard claimed that Mangione had a 3D-printed pistol in his backpack and that he had a silencer and other allegedly-identifiable journal entries in his bag without question.
A defense lawyer disputed the guard’s claim that Mangione, who was appearing before Justice Gregory Carro at the hearing wearing a grey suit and a white shirt with a red checkered pattern, provided the necessary information on his own.
You “weren’t speaking to him at all,” he says to you “I had a 3D-printed pistol” out of nowhere. Marc Agnifilo, a defense attorney, contacted.
The guard claimed during subsequent questioning by a prosecutor that he did not care about the outcome of the case and that he did not ask Mangione any questions.
Mangione’s attorneys contend that his lawyers’ claims that his lawyers violated his legal rights and that his purported statements to law enforcement and his backpack may be significant pieces of evidence at his trial should be inadmissible.
Mangione’s attorneys refute allegations that she was subjected to unlawful searches and interrogations.
The prosecution would benefit greatly by excluding the gun and notebook from a potential murder weapon and evidence that they claim points to motive, and by doing so would eliminate them.
In court documents, Mangione’s alleged praise for the late “Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski, who carried out a number of mail bombings between 1978 and 1995 has been extensively quoted in Mangione’s writings.
According to prosecutors, Mangione allegedly mused about rebelling against “the deadly, greed-fueled health insurance cartel” and justified killing business executives.
The wealthy Maryland family’s scion, Mangione, has entered a not-guilty plea to murder and other charges, and is scheduled to go on trial next year.
In a separate federal case where prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty, he has entered a not-guilty plea.
At the hearing on Monday, Mangione stoically watched the prosecution play surveillance videos of Thompson’s murder and, presumably, Mangione’s arrest five days later.
As he ate breakfast at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, which is about 370 kilometers (230 miles) west of Manhattan, Mangione placed a thumb and finger on his lips in response to surveillance footage of two police officers approaching him.
As prosecutors played a 911 call from a McDonald’s manager who had concerns that Mangione might be the suspect in Thompson’s murder, he held a pen in his right hand and made a fist at times.
The employee was reportedly able to say in a recording of the first court hearing that “I have a customer here that some other customers are suspicious of, who looks like the CEO shooter.”
If Mangione is found guilty of second-degree murder, which is defined as an intentional killing, he could face life in prison. Additionally, he faces one count of false identification and seven counts of criminal possession of a weapon.
In September, Judge Carro dropped two terrorism charges against Mangione because prosecutors lacked sufficient evidence to show Mangione intended to stifle health insurance workers or influence government decisions.
Before the hearing, several Mangione supporters showed up outside the court, including a woman wearing a “Free Luigi” sash and a man wearing a Super Mario Bros villain’s outfit with a sign that read, “When patients die, profits rise.”
Source: Aljazeera
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