Luigi Mangione’s attorney says her client, who stands accused of killing the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, “does not support violent actions.”
Karen Friedman Agnifilo also argued that any attempts to connect the 27-year-old to other shootings as the U.S. sees a rise in political violence are “dangerous and prejudicial.”
“As we have stated before in multiple public court filings, Mr Mangione does not support violent actions and does not condone past or future political violence,” Friedman Agnifilo said in a statement.
“These repeated attempts to connect him to unrelated acts or to insinuate that he condones or supports these acts are irresponsible, dangerous and prejudicial.”
The statement was issued in response to a request for comment by Fox News Digital in the wake of the recent, unrelated shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.
The suspect in that case, Cole Tomas Allen, was charged with the attempted assassination of President Trump in his first court appearance Monday.
The D.C. shooting is the latest in a growing number of incidents of political violence across the U.S., with President Trump blaming the rise on “dangerous hate speech by Democrats” in an interview the day after the April 25 incident.
Last September the White House included Mangione in a press release detailing alleged instances of “Radical Left Violence.” The administration claimed in the document that “leftists celebrated” the suspect for his alleged involvement in the shooting.
Mangione’s lawyers responded at the time by saying the accusations were “part of a greater political narrative that has no place in any criminal case”.
Mangione was arrested on December 9, 2024, five days after UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was killed outside of a hotel in Midtown Manhattan. He has pleaded not guilty to all federal and state charges against him.
A federal judge dismissed federal murder and weapons charges in January, preventing prosecutors from seeking the death penalty against him. However, the judge kept stalking charges in place.
The suspect’s state murder trial is set to start June 8 and is expected to last around four-to-six weeks.
Mangione’s federal trial was moved from September to October despite his lawyers pushing to postpone it until 2027. He faces the possibility of life in prison if he’s convicted in either case.
At a hearing earlier this year, Mangione spoke out against the prospect of two trials.
“It’s the same trial twice,” he told the judge. “One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition.”
