Luigi Mangione, accused killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO, can use laptop, judge rules

Luigi Mangione, the man accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare's CEO on a midtown Manhattan sidewalk last December, can use a personal laptop to review the evidence against him as long as jail officials don’t object, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

Mangione faces three separate trials — in Pennsylvania state court, Manhattan federal court and New York Supreme Criminal Court — after he was charged with killing health insurance executive Brian Thompson on Dec. 4.

He is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center, the same federal jail where Sean "Diddy" Combs awaits federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges.

Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, on Monday argued in a motion to the judge in the New York state case that her client needed a laptop, which would be configured to allow him only to review case materials, because the data was too voluminous to look at in paper format.

Prep-school educated and part of a wealthy Maryland family, Mangione, 26, is charged with murder as a terrorist act in the New York state case.

Prosecutor Joel Seidemann opposed the special accommodation because, he argued in court papers, the defense team has already facilitated violations of the jail’s security protocols. Before a February appearance, two heart-shaped notes to Mangione were smuggled into the lockup in a pair of argyle socks.

"Fortunately, the items smuggled were handwritten notes and not contraband capable of harming the transporting officers," Seidemann wrote, in opposition to Mangione using a laptop.

He also argued the defense team was playing to the crowds of young, mostly female supporters who had flocked to the court for Mangione’s appearances. Seidemann noted that Mangione has worn a green sweater to some court appearances that supporters have also worn at the hearings in solidarity.

Friedman Agnifilo said the notes were included in the socks inadvertently and one was not addressed to Mangione.

"If this 'incident’ is the basis for the danger the prosecution is referencing, we submit that this does not meet the standard to allow them to deny our reasonable requests," she wrote.

Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro, the presiding judge, cut through the fashion debate and said he would allow Mangione to have the laptop as long as jail officials did not object.

“[The] court has no objection to the defendant being provided with a laptop computer to view discovery if the federal authorities permit it," he ruled Thursday.