Luigi Mangione lawyers fight death penalty, saying Pam Bondi is biased

Lawyers for Luigi Mangione are attempting to avoid the death penalty and throw out two federal charges in the justice department’s case against him, arguing that attorney general Pam Bondi is biased because she used to work at a lobbying firm that represents UnitedHealth Group.

In court documents filed on Friday, Mangione’s lawyers said that Bondi has a “profound conflict of interest” because her former employer, Ballard Partners, a DC-based lobbying firm founded by the Trump donor Brian Ballard, counts UnitedHealth Group as one of its clients.

UnitedHealth Group is the parent company of UnitedHealthcare, its healthcare insurance division. Bondi became a lobbyist with Ballard Partners in 2019, after her term as Florida attorney general ended. She officially left the firm upon her appointment as attorney general earlier this year.

While it’s unclear whether Bondi ever directly worked with UnitedHealth Group as a lobbyist, Mangione’s lawyers are seeking to investigate the attorney general’s ties to Ballard and its relationship with UnitedHealth Group, including Bondi’s compensation with the firm and directions she’s given justice department employees in Mangione’s case.

Mangione’s lawyers are arguing that this alleged conflict of interest, along with comments Bondi has made about Mangione that his lawyers described as overtly political, should encourage the court to throw out the possibility of the death penalty, along with removing two federal charges and tossing out certain evidence from the case.

A hearing is scheduled for 9 January at the US court for the southern district of New York in Manhattan. The justice department and Ballard did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mangione, 27, is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a hotel in Manhattan on 4 December 2024. After a five-day manhunt, Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Law enforcement say they found bullets and a notebook attacking the insurance industry with Mangione when he was arrested.

When Bondi stepped in as attorney general, the justice department announced that it would seek the death penalty for Mangione, calling the killing “a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America”.

“After careful consideration, I have directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case as we carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again,” Bondi said in a statement at the time.

A few weeks later, Margaret Garnett, the federal judge overseeing the case, cautioned Bondi and other justice department officials against making public commentary on the case, which could bias future jurors.

In Friday’s court filing, Mangione’s lawyers said that Bondi’s comments and her seeking the death penalty show that she is acting “based on politics, not merit”.

“Any criminal defendant, let alone one whom the government is trying to kill, is due a criminal process that is untainted by the financial interests of his prosecutors,” the lawyers wrote.

Mangione is represented by a husband-and-wife team of lawyers, Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Marc Agnifilo.

In court filings in November, federal prosecutors said that the federal case should carry on as usual, noting that “pretrial publicity, even when intense, is not itself a constitutional defect”.

“What the defendant recasts as a constitutional crisis is merely a repackaging of arguments,” prosecutors wrote. “None warrants dismissal of the indictment or categorical preclusion of a congressionally authorized punishment.”

The court filing comes after a weeks-long pretrial hearing for the state charges Mangione faces for the killing. After his lawyers were able to get two top state charges thrown out of the case, for first-degree murder and second-degree murder, his lawyers are now trying to get certain evidence they say was illegally gathered removed from the case. The ruling for this pretrial hearing, where the judge will decide what evidence stays in the case, is expected in May.