It is unlikely but not out of the question that Luigi Mangione, who is suspected of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week, will face federal charges, and it is “fair to be concerned” that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg will “mishandle this case,” former prosecutors told Fox News Digital.
Mangione was arrested by police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday morning after a five-day manhunt when a McDonald’s patron recognized his face from wanted posters.
On Tuesday, Mangione refused to waive his right to an extradition hearing in a Pennsylvania court, and his attorney said he intends to file a writ of habeas corpus challenging Mangione’s arrest. Bragg and Blair County District Attorney Peter Weeks are working to get the 26-year-old Ivy League graduate to New York.
“There is no obvious hook for a federal murder prosecution,” James Trusty, who served as a prosecutor in Maryland for 27 years, told Fox News Digital, based on the publicly available details of the case.
However, Trusty said, evidence for potential federal charges could be found on Mangione’s laptop that was seized upon his arrest.
Although federal authorities can hand down murder charges, Trusty said “the types of things that could make it go federal is if [the murder] was in conjunction with organized crime, drug trafficking or a hate crime, which has a more narrow definition than just ‘I hate insurance companies,’” Trusty said.
Members of the Altoona Police Department wrote in a criminal complaint obtained by Fox News Digital that they found a “black 3D-printed pistol and a black silencer.” Possessing such a “ghost gun” – a home-cooked weapon that is unserialized and therefore untraceable – is a federal offense, former Joint Terrorism Task Force head and Port Authority Chief Security Officer John Ryan told Fox News Digital.
Read the full article here
