Luigi Mangione supporters whine about suspected CEO assassin's portrayal in 'corporate backed narrative'
On Dec. 4, 2024, a masked assailant approached UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson from behind and opened fire. Surveillance video shows the cold-blooded attack and a female bystander running in fear as the killer nonchalantly walks off before taking a meandering path uptown through Central Park.
Police have accused Mangione of being the man in the video. They say he made his way out of town and laid low until people at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, recognized him from a wanted poster and called police five days after the slaying.
He was arrested while eating breakfast at the fast food joint, one of the most iconic corporate chains in the world.
But online supporters continue to praise him as "a figure of humanitarianism" and "anti-capitalism."
"Don't give in into this corporate backed narrative," reads a post on a Reddit forum, r/FreeLuigi, in which the author criticizes a new ID documentary, "Who is Luigi Mangione?"
It received hundreds of upvotes and a few dozen comments, some urging supporters to donate to his defense and ignore reporting on the case.
Mangione faces a slew of charges at the state and federal level, the most serious of which could carry the death penalty. Mangione is accused of "meticulously" planning the murder with the motive of igniting a "public discussion about the healthcare industry," according to the Justice Department.
Federal prosecutors allege he stalked the victim, arrived in New York City a week in advance and scouted his surroundings. Police allegedly found his DNA and fingerprints near the crime scene and say he had a gun linked to the murder in his backpack when he was arrested days later.
The NYPD released a still image from surveillance video, showing him pulling his coronavirus mask down and smiling while flirting with a clerk at the check-in of the Manhattan hostel where police say he stayed for the murder. It went viral and immediately attracted a wave of support online for the accused killer.
Other r/FreeLuigi posts have described the accused assassin as a humanitarian and a "positive inspiration." The subreddit's description calls it a forum to "discuss healthcare reform and related topics" along with Mangione's criminal case.
When officers approached, they immediately recognized him even though he was wearing a medical mask, according to court documents.
However, he allegedly handed over a fake ID and gave a phony name. In his bag, police allegedly recovered the suspected murder weapon, a 3D-printed suppressor and the same fake ID used to check into the New York hostel.
Police found shell casings at the scene with sinister messages written on them, "depose," "deny" and "defend," according to authorities. The words are similar to the title of a book critical of the insurance industry in which the victim was a key figure, "Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don't Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It."
The alleged assassination happened right outside a hotel where Thompson, a married father of two from Minnesota, was supposed to attend a Wall Street shareholder conference later in the morning.
But Mangione's supporters say the prosection is both "unprecedented" and a sign of government overreach.
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Even legal experts who do not number among his defenders have criticized the massive police presence at his perp walk, when he arrived in New York City via helicopter and was met by the mayor, the NYPD commissioner and dozens of officers in tactical gear.
"The prep walk was just out of control," said Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and criminal justice professor at Penn State-Lehigh Valley. "This isn't like you're walking the guy out of the precinct and you got to get him into a car. This was such a staged event."
Typically, photographers line up outside a police building and hope to get a picture of a suspect as he is escorted by a couple of detectives to or from a police vehicle for a booking or court appearance. In Mangione's case, police set up a massive reception.
The optics likely won't affect the case, Giacalone said, but some of the theatrics would have been better suited for the arrest of the Son of Sam serial killer, David Berkowitz.
"They made a production out of it," Giacalone said, adding that having the tactical team present was actually a reasonable move due to Mangione's widespread support.
Mangione comes from a wealthy family, attended a private high school and has an Ivy League bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He has a top-tier private attorney.
Supporters say they have raised nearly $300,000 for his legal defense.
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Fox News
4 hours ago
- Fox News
Luigi Mangione defense shared same records they claimed constituted privacy violation: prosecutors
He is accused of killing the CEO of a major U.S. health insurer in order to terrorize the industry, according to prosecutors — but now details of his own personal insurance plan have become a flashpoint in the case against him. 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 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.
Vox
7 hours ago
- Vox
The uniquely American panic over adultery
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Somehow, Martin's own ex-wife Gwyneth Paltrow got involved (as part of a joke, not the affair). Byron and Cabot's affair contained a mash of scandalous elements, but there's another reason why it has brought about the swiftest stripe of internet justice seen in recent memory: Americans love an uncomplicated story about a perceived moral failing. Nothing, therefore, brings us together quite like cheating. We like when cheaters get caught. We like when cheaters have to pay. We like when cheaters get what we think they deserve. We like the Coldplay cheaters because we really don't like dealing with the concept that infidelity is much more complicated than we want it to be. Despite the raft of changes that have come for American relationships — the advent of feminism, the rise and fall of divorce, the burgeoning world of open marriages — and the bare fact that sneaking around isn't uncommon, adultery is still the big bad thing we can all agree on. Why, exactly? Americans are profoundly anti-cheating and always have been There's no question about it — getting cheated on can be horrible: heartbreaking, destabilizing, earth-shattering, wildly unfun. Unsurprisingly, cheating's approval numbers are incredibly low. Since 2001, Gallup has surveyed Americans about behaviors they find immoral, and cheating has consistently been in the gutter, neck and neck with 'cloning humans' as 89 percent of respondents in 2025 said it's 'morally wrong.' That percentage is the same as when the survey was first conducted 24 years ago — it's risen (as high as 93 percent) and fallen, but the lowest that figure has ever been was still 85 percent of respondents declaring cheating unacceptable back in 2023. We can see this attitude in our simple aphorisms — 'If they'll cheat with you, they'll cheat on you,' 'Once a cheater, always a cheater' — in our Reddit threads, and in our TikTok trends. 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Take for example, the story of two star-crossed Good Morning America anchors, both married, which was embraced by fans and tabloids alike. We saw the same energy — even if unfulfilled by the actual players — brought to discussions of the on-set chemistry between Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, or Kerry Washington and Tony Goldwyn, whose Scandal act some hoped to be real. While Ariana Grande and her new boyfriend, Ethan Slater, received some blowback, the overarching reaction to their synchronized spousal abandonment was muted. Like the Coldplay cheats, these stories involve ideas about workplace romances between people with significant others. 'Even though we, in the abstract, hate infidelity, there may be times in some of our own lives where we may have forgiven people,' Solomon says. With some celebs, we've created narratives about them, imagined who they really are and what they're really like. Every parasocial wrinkle becomes something that makes them more human in our eyes. They can remind us of family members, friends, and even ourselves. Because they do, we give them humanity and grace that we aren't quick to offer strangers — even though these famous people are indeed strangers. Given his immense power, Chris Martin should exercise judgment whenever he points to the crowd.'The Coldplay couple, we have no backstory, so it's very easy to vilify both of them,' Solomon says, pointing out that people quickly jumped onto the narrative that both were betraying their spouses. Granted, the way Byron and Cabot reacted, they were caught red-handed. But there wasn't any room made to consider other possibilities (e.g., being in an open relationship, being camera shy, going into hiding for a totally different reason) before the chase to find out every detail about them began. 'They're less sympathetic to us because we don't know them and we can't put ourselves into the narrative,' Solomon adds. It all comes back to the stories we like to tell ourselves. It's worth noting, though, that not all celebrities get off so easily — especially men who have made their marriage part of their appeal. Why we like telling ourselves simple stories about cheaters Perhaps the simple story Americans tell ourselves about cheating being flatly unforgivable (until the GMA anchors do it) is for sanity's sake. Infidelity hinges upon trust, a thing so special that we only allow certain people in our lives to have it. When trust is betrayed, it opens up a world of other anxieties — a debilitating number of what-if scenarios and doubts come into play. So why not just lock that person out, before they can hurt again? That narrative almost always places us as the wronged party. Cheating, in the public imagination, always happens to us. We don't like to picture ourselves doing adultery, committing betrayal, and asking for forgiveness. 'Adulterer' isn't an identity many people claim, and for good reason. 'Most people are not serial betrayers,' Carrie Cole, a counselor and the research director for the Gottman Institute, tells me. Cole, who's studied and counseled couples through affair recovery, tells me that while people are no doubt capable of being deceptive and manipulative, she also sees many cheating partners find themselves embarrassed, ashamed, and guilty about the damage they caused. She also said that while options like an open marriage or divorce might seem like clear, more respectful options instead of adultery — a common refrain is that having all these alternatives makes cheating ostensibly more painful — affairs can happen in all kinds of relationships, no matter the rules of that relationship. Some people who have affairs are likely going against their own morals and values. Understanding what drives people to infidelity is probably more useful than writing them off as human beings. Cole referenced the book Not Just Friends by the late Shirley Glass, which explains that cheating is more complex than we like to think — infidelity is not just a calculus of lies and sex. Glass, who was a psychologist, theorized that sometimes infidelity can begin with making small, seemingly harmless emotional connections, getting caught up and not creating boundaries. The point is not that this is excusable, but that sometimes the 'why' or 'how' of infidelity can be a bit more complicated than we like to think. Examining why people cheat and what humans seek in infidelity is also at the core of psychotherapist Esther Perel's work. Whether it's feelings of being trapped in the role of a doting mother or a lack of physical intimacy, Perel posits that affairs can show us things, perhaps even desires, that are missing in relationships and marriages. Perel poses questions about the magnitude of our morals and desires, why we hold these beliefs (e.g. marriage equals transparency and monogamy) so strongly. She shows couples that it's possible to come back from this kind of violation. Just because Americans see infidelity as an explicit transgression doesn't mean it shouldn't be examined. Our mistakes can tell us about who we are, no matter how much we dislike said mistakes. Perhaps this is why so many people are reluctant to forgive or extend empathy to cheaters. It's much easier to write someone off when we think we could never be like them. Honestly, it's all their fault… Jon G. Fuller/VWPics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images 'I obviously don't condone anyone having an affair, but it's very easy to sit in judgment, in condemnation of one' Cole says. 'It's sometimes not as clear-cut and simple as what people want to make it to be.' Within a narrative like that of the Coldplay cheaters, whatever complex anxieties and feelings we have about trust in relationships get flattened into something deliriously simple. The alternative — hard-won sympathy, the possibility for forgiveness, empathizing with the pain of everyone involved — is a lot less entertaining and more somber than the Philly Phanatic reenacting the most humiliating moment of someone's life. The truth is, there's a disconnect between what Americans believe about 'cheaters' and how we think about ourselves and the people we're sympathetic to. In the US, there's a dogmatic understanding of matrimony that necessarily can't apply to all the many, many marriages out there, and a culture that clings to the roots of that institution even as it changes. Despite it all, there are capacities for shame, forgiveness, and redemption. We just don't seem to want to make room for them. A story that complicated wouldn't be nearly as effective in bringing us all together.
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Yahoo
Mass. man arrested after stealing truck with two French bulldogs inside, police say
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