Luigi Mangione, suspected CEO killer, fighting extradition to New York, officials say

Alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO killer Luigi Mangione is fighting extradition to New York City on a murder charge in the fatal shooting of Brian Thompson and will remain in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested six days into the nationwide hunt for the suspected shooter.

Mangione, 26, an Ivy League-educated computer scientist from Towson, Maryland, was charged in Manhattan with second-degree murder and weapons and a forged instrument possession charges on Monday night following his arrest in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Manhattan prosecutors are seeking to extradite Mangione to face the charges in the killing of Thompson, a married father of two from Maple Grove, Minnesota.

On his way into a Pennsylvania court Tuesday, Mangione struggled with sheriff’s deputies leading him into the courthouse ahead of the extradition hearing. A handcuffed Mangione, wearing an orange jumpsuit, shouted comments during his brief scuffle with the deputies that included Mangione saying "clearly out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people," according to a broadcast. His full comments were not audible.

Blair County, Pennsylvania, District Attorney Peter J. Weeks, speaking at a news conference after the extradition hearing, said he was confident  Mangione would ultimately be extradited to New York. Criminal defendants can choose to waive their extradition to another state to face charges, but also have the option to contest the process, which typically delays transport to the jurisdiction for arraignment.

"We're going to do what's necessary to get the governor's warrant [for extradition]," Weeks said. "Waiving [extradition] accelerates that process. Contesting it just makes more hoops for law enforcement to jump through, but we're happy to do it."

Officials said Mangione would remain in Pennsylvania for at least 14 days.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said it intended to seek a governor’s warrant to extradite Mangione.

Weeks said the judge gave Mangione’s defense attorney 14 days to file a petition challenging the extradition. Weeks said the judge would set another hearing after that deadline. Weeks said he intended to forego prosecuting Mangione in Pennsylvania on gun possession and forgery charges to allow the New York case to proceed, but said he didn’t intend to drop his case against Mangione.

Mangione’s Pennsylvania-based defense attorney did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Tuesday.

Thompson died last Wednesday as a result of a "gunshot wound to the torso," as determined at his autopsy, according to the felony arrest warrant for Mangione issued in New York.

Mangione, who grew up outside of Baltimore but recently lived in Honolulu, was arrested Monday morning at a McDonald's restaurant in Altoona, after a fellow patron thought he resembled the suspect in Thompson’s killing. Authorities released a photo Tuesday of Mangione munching on a McDonald’s hash brown shortly before his arrest.

Police found "a black 3D printed pistol and a black silencer ... the pistol had a metal slide and a plastic handle with a metal threaded barrel" inside Mangione’s backpack, according to a criminal complaint filed in Blair County. "The pistol had one loaded Glock magazine with six nine-millimeter full metal jacket rounds. There was also one loose nine-millimeter hollow point round."

Mangione was arraigned Monday on those forgery and weapons charges in Blair County, and ordered held without bail.

According to the Pennsylvania complaint, police were dispatched to the McDonald’s on Plank Road in Altoona at 9:14 a.m. for a "suspicious male" who resembled the CEO shooter.

Mangione, wearing a blue medical mask and a beanie, was sitting at a table in the rear of the restaurant and looking at a silver laptop when police walked up to him, the complaint said. A backpack was on the floor next to him, the complaint said.

Rookie Police Officer Tyler Frye, who has been a police officer for about six months, said he and his partner "recognized him immediately."

"We didn't even think twice about it," Frye said. "We knew it was our guy."

Frye said Mangione pulled down his mask when he directed him to do so and described Mangione as "pretty cooperative."

Mangione provided police with a New Jersey driver’s license bearing the name of Mark Rosario with a birth year of 1998 when asked for identification by the officers, the complaint said. The NYPD said the ID is fake and was the same one used to book a hostel on the Upper West Side where the alleged shooter stayed before the shooting.

When the police asked Mangione if he had been to New York recently, he "became quiet and started to shake," the complaint said.

When questioned about the identification he provided and told he would be arrested if he lied about his identity, Mangione told the officers his name, the complaint said. When asked why he initially lied, Mangione said, according to the complaint, "I clearly shouldn’t have."

At the time of his arrest, Mangione, who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, was carrying a three-page "manifesto" that "speaks to both his motivation and mindset," said NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny, who said the document indicated that the suspect "has some ill will toward corporate America."

Surveillance video showed what police said was the targeted and brazen killing of Thompson, who was shot from behind in the back and calf, as he walked on a sidewalk outside the Hilton about 6:44 a.m. last Wednesday. The shooter, wearing a mask and hood, was believed to have left the scene on an electric bike.

NYPD detectives were able to piece together his whereabouts before and after the shooting using the extensive network of surveillance cameras in Manhattan.

According to a police official, the suspected shooter had arrived in New York on Nov. 24 at the Port Authority Bus Terminal after 10 p.m. on a bus from Atlanta, though it was unclear at which stop the shooter boarded the bus.

He checked into the hostel on Amsterdam Avenue and stayed for five days, checking out on Nov. 29, then checking back in the next day, police said.

The suspected gunman left the hostel at 5:30 a.m. on the day of the shooting and went into a nearby Starbucks, police said.

After shooting Thompson, who was pronounced dead at a hospital about a half hour after being wounded, the alleged gunman fled on what police believe was an electric bicycle and entered Central Park at 6:48 a.m., police said.

Surveillance video showed him at Central Park West at 6:56 a.m. and two minutes later at 85th Street and Columbus Avenue. At 7 a.m., he had abandoned the bike and was spotted walking north on 86th Street. The suspect then got into a cab and was next spotted via surveillance video near the Port Authority bus station near the George Washington Bridge at 7:30 a.m.

At the scene, police found several pieces of evidence, including an apparent message on the three shell casings. Investigators found the words "delay," "deny" and "depose" on the shell casings, a law enforcement source has told Newsday. The words echo a 2010 book entitled "Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don't Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It" by Jay M. Feinman.