Luigi Mangione, accused in the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, was denied bail during his first court appearance in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, on Monday, as first reported by the New York Times and according to court documents reviewed by TheWrap.
He faces five charges, including felony counts of forgery and carrying a firearm without a license.
The 26-year-old Ivy League grad was arrested earlier Monday in Altoona, Pennsylvania, as a person of interest in last week’s fatal shooting. Police received a tip that he was at a local McDonald’s. Images of the suspect, both masked and unmasked, went viral as soon as they were released by police.
According to Times reporter Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, “They found Luigi Mangione sitting at a table with a laptop and wearing a blue medical mask, according to a criminal complaint. An officer asked him to pull down his mask and recognized him as the suspect from the New York shooting. When an officer asked Mangione if he had been to New York recently, he ‘became quiet and started to shake,’ police officers wrote.”
Before he was identified and arrested, Mangione was hailed by some on social media as a folkloric hero for gunning down Thompson, who was known for denying critical healthcare coverage.
According to the Boston Globe, in 2023, UnitedHealthcare dismissed nearly one out of three claims, double the rate of any other major insurer.
On his X account, which has since been suspended, Mangione ranted about porn and “wokeism.” His account also showed he was interested artificial intelligence and was concerned about the rise of deepfake technology.
A prep school valedictorian and graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where he focused on computer science and cognitive science, Mangione received a Master of Science in Engineering, Computer and Information Science from the same university in 2020, The New York Post reported.
