Luigi Mangione, the man accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson, returns to a Manhattan courtroom Friday for a crucial hearing where his defense attorneys will ask a judge to toss out two of the four federal counts against him.
Mangione's lawyers want Judge Margaret Garnett to dismiss one count of murder through use of a firearm, which carries a maximum potential sentence of death, and one count known as a firearms offense. The federal criminal complaint also charges him with two stalking counts.
He haspleaded not guilty.
Garnett is expected to allow Mangione's lawyers and U.S. government prosecutors 30 minutes apiece to make their arguments to the court. The hearing is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. ET.
Mangione, 27, separately faces nine counts in a case brought by New York state prosecutors, including second-degree murder and various weapons counts. He haspleaded not guiltyin that case, too.
In the lead-up to Friday's hearing, federal prosecutors forcefully pushed back on Mangione's team's assertion that Attorney General Pam Bondi shouldrecuse herself from his federal casebecause of what they characterized as her "profound" conflict of interest.
In a six-page filing Wednesday, Deputy U.S. Attorney Sean Buckley said Bondi no longer has a financial interest in Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm that counts UnitedHealthcare as a client.
He said nothing in Bondi's financial disclosure form suggests any "ongoing income, distributions, partnership draws, or remuneration from Ballard Partners in any form."
Buckley said Mangione's lawyers have likewise not shown that Bondi's decision to authorize the death penalty against their client was influenced in any way by her relationship with Ballard, where Bondi worked as a lobbyist following her two terms as Florida attorney general.
Mangione stands accused of fatally shooting Thompson on Dec. 4, 2024, outside the New York Hilton Midtown hotel as the executive was on his way to an investors conference. The killing drew national attention and set off a frantic five-day manhunt across the Northeast.
Police officers arrested Mangione inside a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Dec. 9, 2024, in an encounter that was recorded on body camera video.
When officers first approached Mangione at the fast-food restaurant, he falsely identified himself as "Mark Rosario." When a patrolman warned Mangione that he was being investigated and faced arrest if he gave a false name, Mangione came clean and confirmed his real identity.
Authorities have said Mangione was carrying a backpack containing a ghost gun, fake IDs, a notebook and other writings detailing his grievances against the private health care system in the U.S.
Investigators found a three-page handwritten document that referred to the health care industry and included the phrase "these parasites simply had it coming," law enforcement sources previously told NBC News.
