Luigi Mangione defense shared same records they claimed constituted privacy violation: prosecutors
Luigi Mangione, a 27-year-old alumnus of the Ivy League's University of Pennsylvania, took his business to Aetna, which may have inadvertently given too much information to New York prosecutors in response to a subpoena following the alleged assassination of 51-year-old UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Mangione allegedly shot the father of two from behind outside a shareholder conference in New York City last fall.
Manhattan prosecutors in a court filing Friday denied that they violated a federal law protecting private healthcare information when they subpoenaed information from his health insurance provider.
Mangione's defense last month accused the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, led by Alvin Bragg, of flagrantly violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, better known as HIPAA, with a "false and fraudulent" subpoena and asked for prosecutors to face sanctions and for the judge to toss the case.
Prosecutors denied all allegations that "something secretive or nefarious" was afoot and countered that they made a "lawful" request for basic information.
Read the latest court filing:
They asked for his account number and the time period he received coverage, but unexpectedly received extra materials that they turned over to the court, according to the latest filing.
"The defense...seeks to punish the People for the administrative mistakes of others, claiming that the People have perpetrated a 'lie and a fraud' against defendant—an inflammatory and dubious accusation without any basis," prosecutors wrote in a letter to the judge.
In fact, prosecutors argued, it wasn't just Aetna that inadvertently sent additional information to Bragg's office. The defense did too when one of the former Ivy Leaguer's lawyers sent a copy of the same healthcare information to prosecutors in an email.
Bragg's office also notified Aetna, which re-submitted its subpoena response without the additional, unrequested details.
When asked about the legal back-and-forth, Aetna provided a brief statement:
"Aetna received a subpoena for certain medical records, and we provided them," a spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
Prosecutors said they initially learned of his Aetna coverage from a search warrant served on his Apple iCloud account. The filing does not make clear why they were seeking information from the insurer, but the requested details could be used to establish a timeline or build out the apparent motive.
Investigators recovered writings from Mangione where he blasted the healthcare industry and allegedly referenced both UnitedHealthcare and the 2024 shareholder conference that was supposed to begin hours after the murder of Thompson. He also allegedly wrote messages on bullet casings found at the scene.
Mangione allegedly stalked Thompson and shot him in the back outside the hotel where the conference was taking place.
Surveillance video from the hotel shows a masked man sneak behind Thompson and fire multiple shots. At least one eyewitness ran off the opposite direction of the suspect.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to a slew of charges in connection with the slaying, including murder and terrorism charges in New York and murder through use of a firearm in federal court. He is being held without bail at a federal jail in Brooklyn.
He is also facing prosecution in Pennsylvania, where police arrested him, allegedly in possession of a "ghost gun" and 3D-printed silencer.
He could face life imprisonment at the state level or the federal death penalty if convicted of the most serious charges.
His next appearance in the New York Supreme Criminal Court in Manhattan is scheduled for Sept. 16.
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7 hours ago
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