UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione’s defense attorney in Pennsylvania is arguing that his DNA obtained from a snack that Altoona police gave him after detaining him should not be allowed in court, according to court filings.
Mangione, 26, is charged with first-degree murder in furtherance of an act of terrorism, stalking and a slew of other state and federal charges in both New York and Pennsylvania for allegedly gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a married father of two, on a sidewalk in Manhattan in December 2024.
In court documents filed last week, Mangione’s Pennsylvania criminal defense attorney, Thomas Dickey, argued that Mangione’s constitutional rights were violated during his detention and arrest at a McDonald’s in Altoona, where Mangione allegedly fled by bus after Thompson’s murder.
Dickey is arguing that because Mangione was detained and arrested illegally, his DNA collected from food that Altoona police gave him at the station was obtained unlawfully and should not be permitted as evidence in court.
LUIGI MANGIONE’S JOURNAL NOT ‘MANIFESTO’ ABOUT HEALTHCARE GRIEVANCES, ATTORNEY ARGUES
UnitedHealthcare CEO slaying suspect Luigi Mangione is pictured at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa., on Monday, Dec. 9, 2024. (Pennsylvania State Police)
“While illegally seized, arrested, and detained, the Defendant was provided food and soda at the Altoona Police Department Station,” the court filing reads. “The purposes for the same, was to obtain DNA from the Defendant for further investigative purposes. Insofar as the Defendant[‘]s detention was for legal reasons set forth…any and all DNA samples, profiles, etc. were poisonous fruits obtained in violation of the protections afforded the Defendant by the constitutions of both the United States and this Commonwealth.”
Fox News Digital was the first to confirm that Altoona police offered Mangione a slice of pizza behind bars after his arrest.
“They’re arguing that his detention and arrest [were] illegal,” Philadelphia-based criminal defense attorney Matthew Mangino told Fox News Digital of Dickey’s arguments, and “everything derived from” an unlawful arrest can’t be used against the defendant.
A photo obtained by Fox News Digital shows Luigi Mangione. (Obtained by Fox News Digital)
In the event that prosecutors could not use DNA or other evidence collected during Mangione’s Altoona arrest, they would have to “restructure everything he did” in Manhattan to place him at the scene, Mangino said.
“You could probably prove the case against him even without everything found on him at the time of his arrest.”
“I don’t think, even if there was suppression, there wouldn’t be a case,” he continued.
LUIGI MANGIONE ACCEPTS $300K FROM ‘SICK’ DONORS CHEERING MURDER OF UNITEDHEALTHCARE CEO: EXPERT
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed in midtown Manhattan. (Businesswire | NYPD Crimestoppers)
Paul Mauro, former NYPD inspector and Fox News contributor, told Fox News Digital that the Mangione case “would be more complicated” without DNA evidence, but it would not be impossible to use other evidence to place Mangione at the scene.
“Of course, we’ve got a problem because we’ve got fruit of the poisonous tree, so how do we put him at the scene?” Mauro said.
LUIGI MANGIONE’S TERROR CASE: WAS THE SUSPECTED UNITEDHEALTHCARE CEO ASSASSIN ‘OVERCHARGED’?
The former NYPD inspector added that the defense’s filing is “expected” because police “didn’t approach him based on an eyewitness to a crime.”
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot in Manhattan. (AP Photo/UnitedHealth Group)
“The information they approached him on was comparatively [thin]. He had a mask on … he took the mask down to eat,” Mauro explained. He added, however, that Altoona police appeared to follow the right protocol by approaching Mangione and asking if he had been to New York City recently, at which point Mangione started shaking, leading police to believe he was suspicious, according to charging documents.
But both Mauro and Mangino think Mangione’s detention, and therefore the collection of his DNA, will be determined to be lawful.
“It’s my understanding that they’re saying there was no probable cause at the time for his arrest and detention,” the attorney said. “[Police] came and they had reasonable suspicion to ask him questions and pat him down based on the fact that someone had called them, and he matched the description of the suspect.”
Luigi Mangione appears in Manhattan Supreme Court in New York City on December 23, 2024. (Curtis Means for DailyMail/Pool)
Prior to Mangione’s arrest, after he allegedly fled the scene of the murder in Manhattan, the New York Police Department (NYPD) issued be-on-the-lookout alerts with the murder suspect’s photos so that members of the public could recognize him and call in tips.
Mangione apparently fled to Pennsylvania by bus, and a McDonald’s employee recognized him in an Atoona location and called police just days after Thompson’s murder.
Luigi Mangione departs the courtroom following his arraignment in New York City Criminal Court on Monday, December 23, 2024. (Rashid Umar Abbasi for Fox News Digital)
Altoona police arrived at the scene and arrested the 26-year-old suspect while he was eating breakfast. Police responded to the location for reports of a person matching the description of the man wanted for questioning in Thompson’s murder, but Altoona police said they initially took him into custody on unrelated charges.
When officers approached, they immediately recognized him, even though he was wearing a medical mask, according to court documents. However, he allegedly handed over a fake ID and gave a phony name. When police asked if he’d recently been to New York, Mangione allegedly “became quiet and started to shake,” charging documents state.
Luigi Mangione shouts while officers restrain him as he arrives for his extradition hearing at Blair County Courthouse in Hollidaysburg, Pa., on Tuesday, December 10, 2024. (David Dee Delgado for Fox News Digital)
Police asked to search his bag and apparently found a 3D-printed “ghost gun” similar to the suspected murder weapon, a suppressor and a fake ID in his possession when taken into custody.Â
Additionally, Mangione had a manifesto in his backpack at the time of his arrest that Dickey argues should not be referred to as a manifesto but as “writings” or a “journal.”
WATCH ‘DENY, DEFEND, DELAY: THE MURDER OF A CEO’ ON FOX NATION
Luigi Mangione appears in Manhattan Criminal Court for a status hearing in New York City on Friday, Feb. 21, 2025. (Curtis Means/Pool)
Mangione apparently expressed his grievances with the healthcare industry — specifically naming UnitedHealthcare and the shareholder conference where Thompson was headed in New York at the time of the assassination.
Mangione is accused of “meticulously” planning the murder with the motive of igniting a “public discussion about the healthcare industry,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
WHO IS LUIGI MANGIONE, SUSPECT IN UNITEDHEALTHCARE CEO MURDER?
Luigi Mangione (Luigi Mangione/Facebook)
New York prosecutors said Mangione plotted to travel to New York, find Thompson, a Minnesota resident in town for UnitedHealthcare’s annual shareholder conference, and kill him. Mangione allegedly shot Thompson from behind with a 3D-printed ghost gun and suppressor.Â
SIGN UP TO GET TRUE CRIME NEWSLETTER
The NYPD released a still image from surveillance video, showing him pulling his face mask down and smiling while flirting with a clerk at the check-in of the Manhattan hostel where police say he stayed for the murder. It went viral and immediately attracted a wave of support online for the accused killer.
The suspected gunman in UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s murder, believed to be Luigi Mangione, is seen flirting with a hostel employee on surveillance footage before the Dec. 4 shooting. (NYPD)
The suspect allegedly fled the scene of Thompson’s murder, rode a bike to a bus station and took a bus to Altoona, where he was ultimately identified and arrested.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Mangione is originally from Maryland and recently lived in California and Hawaii. He graduated as valedictorian from the Gilman School, a private all-boys high school in Baltimore, in 2016.
Mangione went on to receive his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020.
Fox News Digital’s Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.
