Luigi Mangione has hired veteran former New York prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo to defend him against murder charges on Friday, according to a release from his law firm Agnifilo Intrater LLP late Friday night.
Friedman Agnifilo was second in command of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office from 2014 to 2021 under former DA Cyrus Vance. A biography on his law firm’s website says he played a leading role in prosecuting “high-powered felony cases,” including mental health and cold-case homicides.
“Karen Friedman Agnifilo has a three-decade background in criminal justice, litigation and trial. Her practice focuses on criminal defense in state and federal courts, leveraging her extensive experience prosecuting serious violent crimes, including complex homicide cases, from indictment to investigation and arrest to trial,” she says. his biographies
“While serving in the Manhattan DA’s office, Ms. Friedman Agnifilo was also instrumental in creating the office’s Human Trafficking Unit, Hate Crimes Unit, Antiquities Trafficking Unit, Terrorism Unit, its Cybercrime and Identity Theft Office, as well as working on Manhattan’s first Mental Health Court.” , the biography continued.
Friedman Agnifilo is also a frequent guest and commentator on television news and is a former CNN legal analyst.
Meidas is also the host of a weekly podcast on the Touch Network where he discusses legal issues and litigation strategies that reach half a million listeners per episode, according to his bio. He is also a legal advisor to the television show Law and Order.
Luigi Mangione, 26, the suspect in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson of New York, is escorted after an extradition hearing at the Blair County Court House in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania on December 10, 2024.
Eduardo Munoz/Reuters
Meanwhile, law enforcement sources told ABC News that the memos seized from Luigi Mangione indicate that he was increasingly fixated and malicious with UnitedHealthcare and had been talking about harming his boss for months.
Some of the notebook entries seized from Mangione when he was arrested in Pennsylvania earlier this week contained dates as far back as mid-2024, sources said.
That fix would eventually turn into an alleged plan to fire that CEO, the sources said.
Some of the writing was journal-style, documenting how she felt, what she did that day, and also documented her desire to focus on her health and herself and find her purpose, sources said.
Then, as time went on — as Mangione allegedly lost contact with friends and family and became increasingly isolated — some of his writings revealed a deterioration in his thinking and state of mind, indicating that he was gradually building towards his alleged murder plan. UnitedHealthCare’s CEO “at the annual anti-parasite bean convention,” sources said.
A sign depicting Luigi Mangione hangs outside the New York Hilton Midtown hotel in New York on December 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
Mangione’s writings, obtained by ABC News, say the US has the most expensive health care system in the world, but ranks 42nd in life expectancy. He said UnitedHealthcare “has grown and grown, but like our life expectancy? The reality is not, these (indecipherable) have become too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for enormous profits.”
“I apologize for the trauma conflict, but it had to be done,” he reportedly wrote. “Honestly, these parasites just came.”
Neither Mangion nor his parents received insurance through UnitedHealthcare, according to UnitedHealth Group.
Mangione, 26, is being held in a Pennsylvania state prison after a judge denied him bail on Tuesday.
