Prosecutors are telling a judge not to bother dropping some of the charges related to a Pennsylvania state case against Luigi Mangione.
Mangione, 26, is accused of killing UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson outside a New York City hotel last December.
The filing, submitted by the Blair County District Attorney’s Office, is a reply to court documents submitted in late February by attorney Thomas Dickey, representing Mangione in Pennsylvania, that asked the court to toss several charges and keep certain evidence off the table for jury trial.
Those court documents called Mangione’s arrest unlawful and challenged whether there truly was probable cause to arrest him in the first place. They also asked for certain charges to be dismissed and for the court to prohibit prosecutors from calling Mangione’s red journal a “manifesto.”
The response was the first time prosecutors acknowledged who placed the original 911 call: the manager of the Plank Road McDonald’s in Altoona.
The manager told dispatchers that customers approached her and expressed their concern and fear, indicating that he looked like the “CEO shooter from New York.”
She told police where Mangione was sitting and what he was wearing. She told dispatchers she wanted police assistance because she was afraid to approach or confront Mangione personally, which is why she called 911.
Prosecutors rolled this new information out to help solidify their argument that police had a reasonable suspicion to approach, interview and later search Mangione.
Police approached Mangione to verify the McDonald’s manager’s report to dispatch, and they were also familiar with photos depicting Mangione being circulated by the New York City Police Department, which was enough to initiate an investigatory detention and later arrest of Mangione.
Dickey also wrote that when officers arrived, they boxed Mangione into a corner, forming a “human law enforcement wall” that prevented him from departing — effectively an arrest. Prosecutors said, in turn, that Mangione was already seated and settled, and never tried to disengage from the detention.
Prosecutors claim Luigi Mangione was under a lawful probable cause arrest once police verified his ID was forged and fraudulent. Then, after police threatened to charge Mangione for lying to them about his name, he revealed his real name, which confirmed his driver’s license was forged and escalated the investigatory detention into a probable cause arrest.
Prosecutors also argued that Mangione had a right to challenge probable cause at his hearing scheduled for Dec. 23, but he waived the hearing instead.
Finally, although Dickey called the police’s search of Mangione’s backpack unconstitutional, prosecutors argued instead that police needed to search Mangione’s backpack as they took him into custody for safety-related reasons.
It is unknown when Judge Jackie Atherton Bernard, the judge presiding over the case, is expected to rule on Dickey’s motions.
Mangione was indicted April 17 by a federal grand jury on four counts, including stalking and murder through the use of a firearm — the latter of which carries a maximum sentence of death.
He pleaded not guilty on April 25 to all federal charges against him in the case.