NEW YORK (AP) — Luigi Mangione is still waiting to log in.
Months after a judge said he could have a laptop in jail to review evidence, lawyers for the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson say the device has yet to be delivered.
The delay, Mangione’s lawyers said in a court filing made public Thursday, is putting the 27-year-old suspect in a time crunch with little more than two weeks before an important hearing in his state murder case.
Mangione, also facing a federal death penalty case, has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal jail in Brooklyn, since his December 2024 arrest. He has pleaded not guilty.
A judge approved the defense’s request for a laptop in August, but getting it in his hands has been slow because of modifications required to prevent misuse and the volume of evidence being saved to it.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the state case, didn’t want him to have a laptop. Federal prosecutors didn’t take a position, and their spokesperson declined to comment Thursday.
“Although the federal court has previously issued a laptop order, there is a lengthy and laborious process that must be completed before Mr. Mangione receives the laptop,” defense lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo wrote.
To comply with jail regulations, she said, the laptop had to be sent to an outside technology vendor to disable its connections to the internet, printers and wireless networks — a process that took “many weeks to complete.”
The changes mean the tech-savvy Mangione, a former software engineer, won’t be able to use the laptop to view websites, send messages or post on social media.
Now, the device is with federal prosecutors, who are loading the computer with some of the more than seven terabytes of evidence that has been collected in the case, Friedman Agnifilo said. The rest will be saved to an external hard drive that also will be provided to Mangione.
Such evidence sharing, known as discovery, is routine in criminal cases and is intended to help ensure a fair trial. Defendants often assist their lawyers in reviewing evidence and shaping their defense.
“Once Mr. Mangione receives the laptop and hard drive, he will need time to meaningfully review” the material before a Dec. 1 hearing on evidence and other issues in the state case, Friedman Agnifilo said.
Mangione’s lawyers are seeking to have prosecutors barred from using certain evidence collected during his arrest, including a 9 mm handgun, a notebook in which authorities say he described his intent to “wack” an insurance executive, and statements he made to police.
Cases at critical points
Thompson, 50, was killed on Dec. 4, 2024, as he arrived at a Manhattan hotel for his company’s annual investor conference.
Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him behind. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
Mangione, the Ivy League-educated scion of a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later while eating breakfast at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.
As the anniversary of the killing nears, Mangione’s cases are at critical points.
In September, Judge Gregory Carro threw out Mangione’s state terrorism charges but kept the rest of the case — including an intentional murder charge — in place. A trial date could be set at next month’s hearing.
In the federal case, Mangione’s lawyers want prosecutors barred from seeking the death penalty and want at least some charges dismissed, arguing that authorities prejudiced him by turning his arrest into a spectacle and by publicly declaring their desire to see him executed. A hearing is scheduled for Jan. 9.
Wait for laptop continues
As for the laptop, Mangione’s lawyers have been trying to get him one since March.
They told Carro that the amount of evidence being turned over by prosecutors — including video files, documents and other items — was so voluminous, Mangione couldn’t reasonably view it on the jail’s shared computers for inmates. Nor would they be able to go over it all during jail visits, they said.
The district attorney’s office disagreed, arguing that instead of giving Mangione a laptop, his lawyers could simply show him key case material instead.
Carro concluded that he had “no objection” as long as jail officials were on board.
On Aug. 4, the judge in Mangione’s federal case signed an order approving Mangione for a modified, evidence-only laptop and requiring that the jail give him access to it each day from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
More than 100 days later, still no laptop.
