Judge says he’ll rule in May on Luigi Mangione’s fight to exclude evidence from NY murder trial

NEW YORK (AP) — Luigi Mangione’s pretrial hearing wrapped up Thursday with a judge saying he plans to rule in May on what evidence prosecutors will be able to use in his New York trial for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Prosecutors rested their case after calling nearly 20 witnesses over three weeks, many of them police officers involved in Mangione’s December 2024 arrest in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Mangione’s lawyers opted not to call any witnesses.

Carro gave Mangione’s lawyers until Jan. 29 and prosecutors until March 5 to make written submissions summarizing their arguments. The judge said he’ll rule on May 18.

Mangione, 27, is seeking to exclude items including a gun and notebook found in his backpack that prosecutors say tie him to Thompson’s Dec. 4, 2024, shooting in Manhattan. Prosecutors say the 9 mm handgun matches the one used to kill Thompson and the notebook contains an entry describing his intent to “wack” a health insurance executive.

Mangione’s lawyers contend that anything found in Mangione’s backpack should be excluded from his trial because police didn’t have a search warrant and lacked the grounds to justify a warrantless search.

Prosecutors say the search was legal because it was conducted in conjunction with an arrest and officers were checking to make sure there were no dangerous items in the bag that could be harmful to them or the public. Police eventually obtained a warrant, prosecutors said.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty to state and federal murder charges. The pretrial hearing applies only to the state case. His lawyers are making a similar push to exclude the evidence from his federal case, where prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Mangione was arrested after customers spotted him eating breakfast at a McDonald’s in Altoona, a Pennsylvania city of about 44,000 people some 230 miles (370 kilometers) west of Manhattan. The restaurant’s manager told a 911 dispatcher customers thought “he looks like the CEO shooter from New York.”