World
Mangione admits in open court to shooting the UnitedHealthcare chief executive
By Staff Writer | 15 August 2026
Pleading guilty to federal stalking charges in Manhattan, the 28 year old described building the weapon on a 3D printer and travelling to New York intending to shoot Brian Thompson. Sentencing is set for 18 December.
The man accused of killing the chief executive of the largest health insurer in the United States admitted the shooting in open court on Friday, ending nearly two years of denial in a case that has drawn crowds to the courthouse and more than 1.5 million dollars to his defence fund.
Luigi Mangione, 28, pleaded guilty to federal stalking charges before a Manhattan court that included members of the dead man's family. Wearing a yellow prison uniform, he read a prepared statement slowly and deliberately.
I shot Mr Thompson in Manhattan and he died
Luigi Mangione, defendant
He added: "I knew what I was doing was illegal."
The account he gave the court
He told the court that after years of pain from a broken back and difficulties with the health insurance system, he learned that UnitedHealthcare would hold its annual investor conference in New York. He obtained the venue, a hotel in Manhattan, by emailing the company while presenting himself as a firm with 50 million dollars in assets, and said the reply came within an hour, unlike his previous dealings with insurers.
He described making the weapon with a 3D printer and fitting it with a silencer and a magazine. He then told the court that he had travelled to New York intending to shoot Brian Thompson, which is the statement of intent that the stalking charges turn on and the reason a plea of this kind removes the need for a jury to infer it from the surveillance footage.
Brian Thompson was shot in the back on a Manhattan street on 4 December 2024. Mangione was arrested five days later at a restaurant in Pennsylvania after a member of staff recognised him from images issued by the police.
What the prosecution had ready
Prosecutor Dominic Gentile told the court that a 3D printed gun and an apparently handwritten document found in the defendant's rucksack, together with other material, would have been put before a jury had the case gone to trial. He said further footage showed the defendant following Thompson around Manhattan the day before the killing.
Beyond the prepared statement, the defendant answered the judge's questions on his fitness to plead with single words. He took notes throughout.
What happens next
Sentencing on the federal charges is listed for 18 December. A separate state prosecution remains outstanding, and Friday's plea leaves its course uncertain rather than settled.
The case has attracted support from people angry at the private health insurance system in the United States, and some of them were at the courthouse on Friday alongside reporters and members of the public. That reaction, rather than the plea itself, is what has kept the killing in the news for twenty months.