Lawyers for Luigi Mangione argue that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s move to seek the death penalty in the slaying of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson is fraught with a conflict of interest, citing her previous role as a lobbyist at a firm that represented the insurer’s parent company, according to an Associated Press report.
Bondi was a partner at Ballard Partners before he led the Justice Department’s charge to turn Mangione’s federal prosecution 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.
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He’s trying to prevent prosecutors from seeking the death penalty and drop some of the charges.
A hearing in the case is scheduled for January 9.
What Mangione’s lawyers said
“By getting involved in the death penalty decision and making public statements suggesting Mangione deserved to be executed, Bondi broke a promise she made before taking office in February to abide by ethics rules and stay out of matters involving Ballard’s clients for a year,” Mangione’s lawyers said.
They argued 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.
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“The very person” empowered to seek Mangione’s death “has a financial stake in the case he is prosecuting,” his lawyers wrote. Her conflict of interest “should cause her to recuse herself from any decisions in this case,” they added.
Messages seeking comment were left with the Justice Department and Ballard Partners.
Bondi announced in April that she was directing Manhattan federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty, saying even before Mangione was formally indicted that the death penalty had been ordered 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 the masked gunman shooting him from behind. Police say the ammunition was marked with “delay,” “reject” and “fold,” mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurance companies avoid paying claims.
Mangione, 27, an Ivy League-educated member of a prominent 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 both federal and state murder charges, with the state case carrying the possibility of life in prison.
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Court dates have not yet been set in either case, AP reported.
Friday’s filing returned attention to Mangione’s federal case a day after a marathon preliminary hearing ended with him fighting prosecutors in his state case 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 intention to “rip off” a health insurance executive. A verdict is not expected until May.
Mangione’s defense team, led by husband-and-wife duo Karen Friedman-Agnifilo and Marc Agnifilo, has focused on Bondi’s past lobbying work as they try to convince U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett to rule out the death penalty, dismiss some of the charges and exclude the same evidence they want to suppress from the state’s case.
In a September court filing, Mangione’s lawyers argued that Bondi’s announcement that he was directing prosecutors to seek the death penalty — which he followed up with Instagram posts and television appearances — showed the decision was “based on politics, not merit.” They also said her remarks tainted the grand jury trial that resulted in his indictment weeks later.
Bondi’s statement and other official actions — including a highly choreographed walk of the perpetrator that saw Mangione led by armed officers onto the Manhattan pier and the Trump administration’s flouting of established death penalty procedures — “violated Mangione’s constitutional and statutory rights and fatally damaged this death penalty case,” his lawyers said.
In a court filing last month, federal prosecutors argued that “pretrial publicity, while intense, is not itself a constitutional defect.”
Prosecutors argued that instead of throwing out the case or barring the government from pursuing the death penalty, the defense’s concerns should be addressed by thoroughly questioning potential jurors about their familiarity with the case and protecting Mangione’s rights during the trial.
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“What the defendant has reframed as a constitutional crisis is merely a repackaging of arguments” that had been rejected in previous cases, prosecutors said. “None warrants the dismissal of an 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 firm’s relationship with UnitedHealth Group, and will request a variety of materials, including details of Bondi’s compensation from the firm, any instructions she gave to Justice Department staff about the case or UnitedHealthcare, and sworn testimony from “all individuals with personal knowledge of the matters involved.”
