Luigi Mangione has hired former New York City prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo to defend him against murder charges on Friday, according to a statement Friday night from her law firm Agnifilo Intrater LLP.
Friedman Agnifilo served as deputy commander in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office from 2014 to 2021 under former DA Cyrus Vance. A biography on her law firm’s website says she played a lead role in the prosecution of “high-profile violent crime cases,” including those involving mental health and cold-case murders.
“Karen Friedman Agnifilo has a three-decade background in criminal law, trial and litigation. Her practice focuses on criminal defense in state and federal courts and utilizes her extensive experience prosecuting serious violent crimes, including complex homicide cases, from indictment to investigation to arrest and trial,” her bio says.
“While serving in the Manhattan DA’s office, Ms. Friedman Agnifilo was also an integral part of the office’s creation of the office’s Human Trafficking Unit, Hate Crimes Unit, Antiquities Trafficking Unit, Terrorism Unit, its Cyber Crimes and Identity Theft Bureau, as well as working to create the Manhattan’s first Mental Health Court,” the biography continued.
Friedman Agnifilo is also a frequent television news guest and commentator and is a former legal analyst for CNN.
She also co-hosts a weekly podcast on Meida’s Touch Network where she discusses emerging legal issues and lawsuits that routinely has half a million listeners per week. episode, according to her biography. She is also a legal advisor to the television show Law and Order.
In this Feb. 14, 2017, file photo, Chief Assistant District Attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo speaks at a press conference with the district attorney’s team and Stan Patz, father of Etan Patz, following the guilty verdict in the trial of Pedro Hernandez.
Natan Dvir/Polaris, FILE
Meanwhile, law enforcement sources have told ABC News that writings seized from Luigi Mangione indicate he had developed a fixation and increased malice toward UnitedHealthcare and allegedly talked about harming his manager for months.
Some of the entries in the notebook seized from Mangione upon his arrest in Pennsylvania earlier this week had dates on them going back to mid-2024, the sources said.
That fixation would eventually evolve into an alleged plan to fire the CEO, the sources said.
Some of the writings were diary-style, documenting how he felt, what he did that day, and also documented a desire to focus on his health and himself and find his purpose, the sources said.
Then, as time went on—as Mangione reportedly fell out of touch with friends and family and became increasingly isolated—some of his writings indicated a deterioration in his thinking and state of mind, illustrating a gradual build-up toward the alleged plan to kill UnitedHealthCare’s CEO at its “annual parasitic bean counter convention,” sources said.
Luigi Mangione, 26, suspected in the killing of UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson in New York City, is escorted after an extradition hearing at the Blair County Court House in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, on December 10, 2024.
Eduardo Munoz/Reuters
Mangione’s writings, obtained by ABC News, claimed that the United States has the most expensive health care system in the world, but ranks around No. 42 in life expectancy. He said that UnitedHealthcare “has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No, the reality is that these [indecipherable] have simply become too powerful and they continue to abuse our country for enormous profit.”
“I apologize for any trauma, but it had to be done,” he reportedly wrote. “Honestly, these parasites just came.”
Neither Mangione nor his parents received insurance through UnitedHealthcare, according to UnitedHealth Group.
Mangione, 26, is currently being held in a Pennsylvania state prison after a judge denied bail on Tuesday.
