OAN Staff Cory Hawkins
3:42 PM – Friday, January 30, 2026
A judge ruled on Friday that Luigi Mangione will not face the death penalty in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
The decision is a major significant setback for federal prosecutors, who had been seeking the capital sentence since the December 2024 shooting.
U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett dismissed the federal murder charge against Mangione on Friday, effectively removing the death penalty from the table.
The ruling hinged on Garnett’s interpretation that the federal stalking charges did not constitute the “crimes of violence” required to support a capital murder indictment.
While prosecutors argued that Mangione’s travel to New York to target Thompson met this threshold, the judge shockingly disagreed, dismissing both the murder count and a related firearm charge.
Nonetheless, Mangione still faces life in prison on the remaining stalking counts.
“The analysis contained in the balance of this Opinion may strike the average person – and indeed many lawyers and judges – as tortured and strange, and the result may seem contrary to our intuitions about the criminal law,” Judge Margaret Garnett wrote in her ruling. “But it represents the Court’s committed effort to faithfully apply the dictates of the Supreme Court to the charges in this case.”
“We’re all very relieved,” Karen Friedman Agnifilo, one of Mangione’s attorneys, told reporters Friday when asked about her client’s reaction to the news.
The ruling follows a bizarre security breach on Wednesday, when a 36-year-old man from Minnesota was arrested for attempting to secure Mangione’s release from a New York federal prison.
Authorities say Mark Anderson, 36, arrived at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn impersonating an FBI agent and claiming to possess a judicial order for Mangione’s release. According to a federal complaint, when asked for identification, Anderson presented a driver’s license and stated he was armed. Instead of legal paperwork, a search of his bag revealed a barbecue fork and a circular steel blade resembling a pizza cutter. Anderson had reportedly moved to New York recently from Minnesota for a job opportunity that fell through, and he has been working at a pizzeria since, according to law enforcement.
“Anderson also displayed and threw at the BOP officers numerous documents,” an FBI agent who signed the complaint wrote. I have reviewed those papers, and they appear to be related to the filing of claims against the United States Department of Justice.”
He was charged with impersonating an FBI agent and appeared in Brooklyn federal court on Thursday afternoon. The complaint does not identify the name of the inmate that Anderson attempted to free, but the FBI agent who signed the complaint confirmed it was 27-year-old Mangione. His arrest came just a day before state prosecutors in Manhattan Supreme Court urged a judge there to set Mangione’s murder trial for July.
Meanwhile, in the Mangione case, prosecutors say Mangione stalked and then fatally shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson from behind on the morning of December 4, 2024, as Thompson was walking into a midtown Manhattan hotel for an investors event held by UnitedHealth. Mangione was later arrested at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, five days after the shooting. He has pleaded not guilty.
Beyond his federal case, Mangione faces separate state-level murder charges in New York, which carry a maximum penalty of life in prison without parole. While his state trial is tentatively set for July, his federal trial is scheduled to begin with jury selection on September 8th followed by opening statements on October 13th.
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