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The attorney general said the decision to seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, who is accused of murdering an insurance executive, was in keeping with an executive order by President Trump.
- April 1, 2025Updated 12:24 p.m. ET
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Tuesday that she would seek the death penalty of Luigi Mangione, who was charged with murdering the UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson in front of a hotel in midtown Manhattan last December.
Ms. Bondi said her decision came after “careful consideration” and was in line with President Trump’s executive order directing the Justice Department to renew use of the death penalty requests after President Biden declared a moratorium on capital punishment for most federal offenders in 2021.
The move, which was widely anticipated, represented the intersection of Mr. Trump’s anti-crime agenda with a horrific, headline-grabbing murder case — the killing in broad daylight of a 50-year-old health care executive targeted because Mr. Mangione saw him as a symbol of callous corporate greed, according to prosecutors.
“Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson — an innocent man and father of two young children — was a premeditated, coldblooded assassination that shocked America,” Ms. Bondi said in a statement.
Ms. Bondi directed Matthew Podolsky, the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, to seek the death penalty. Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for the office, which has been prosecuting Mr. Mangione’s federal case, declined to comment on Tuesday.
It is not clear if the department, under Ms. Bondi, has requested the use of the death penalty before — but the request that it be applied if Mr. Mangione is convicted is among the first.
