Luigi Mangione charged with first-degree murder in UnitedHealth killing

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Luigi Mangione has been charged with first-degree murder in New York for the alleged killing of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson, the Manhattan district attorney announced on Tuesday.

Alvin Bragg said that the 26-year-old Ivy League graduate, who was last week arrested by local police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, had been formally indicted on one count of murder on the first degree “in furtherance of terrorism”, and two counts of murder on the second degree, one of which was charged as a “killing as an act of terrorism”. He is also facing several lesser charges including criminal possession of a weapon.

“This was a frightening, well-planned, targeted murder that was intended to cause shock . . . and intimidation,” Bragg told reporters on Tuesday. 

The most serious charge, murder in the first degree, carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Mangione is being held without bail in Pennsylvania and is due at a court hearing in that state on Thursday morning.

This is a developing story