Authored by Chris Summers via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Luigi Mangione, who is accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had both his state and federal trials postponed on April 1 until the fall.
Mangione allegedly shot Thompson, 50, on Dec. 4, 2024, as he walked toward a hotel in Manhattan where UnitedHealth Group was holding its annual investor conference. Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty, but faces life in prison if he is convicted in either trial.
Judge Gregory Carro on Wednesday rescheduled the state trial from June 8 to Sept. 8, acting hours after the judge in the federal case, Margaret Garnett, moved jury selection in that matter from Sept. 8 to Oct. 5.
Garnett said her decision was based on Mangione’s state murder trial taking place in June.
Mangione’s attorneys asked to postpone the federal case until January or February 2027. Garnett declined, but accepted there may be a further delay.
“Whether we like it or not, we’re at the mercy of the state case,” Garnett said.
Carro did not explain why he was pushing back the state trial, which is expected to take up to six weeks.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at the time of the shooting that it was a “brazen, targeted attack.”
Mangione, who is from Maryland, was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, five days after the shooting.
His lawyers have argued that authorities prejudiced him by turning his arrest into a “Marvel movie” spectacle with armed officers parading him up a pier after he was flown to New York City and by publicly declaring their desire to seek the death penalty before he was indicted.
In April 2025, Attorney General Pamela Bondi ordered federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in Mangione’s case.
In January, Garnett ruled that prosecutors could not seek the death penalty in Mangione’s federal trial. Garnett, a former prosecutor, also threw out a firearms charge.
Along with the new date for the federal trial, Garnett compressed preparations for jury selection to give Mangione and his legal team more time to review questionnaires filled out by hundreds of potential jurors. The original schedule, which was set when the death penalty was still on the table, would’ve overlapped with a state trial held in June.
Prosecutors Urge ‘Speedy Trial’
Federal prosecutors opposed a delay in the trial, arguing that witnesses are harder to locate and that memories fade over time. At least one witness will be traveling from abroad, Assistant U.S. Attorney Dominic Gentile said.
“The public has a right to a speedy trial as well, especially in a case as significant as this,” Gentile said.
He said Mangione’s lawyers had had more than a year to prepare for two trials, which include the same allegations and witnesses.
At a hearing on Feb. 6, Mangione spoke out against the prospect of two trials, telling Carro: “It’s the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition.”
During that hearing, defense lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo said, “Mr. Mangione is being put in an untenable situation. This is a tug-of-war between two different prosecution offices.”
The Epoch Times reached out to Mangione’s lawyers for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
