• Luigi Mangione's lawyer says his criminal case is being politicized.
• She criticized NYC Mayor Eric Adams's presence at his first perp-walk from a Manhattan helipad.
• Mangione pleaded not guilty to both state and federal-level murder charges.

A lawyer representing Luigi Mangione says law enforcement is politicizing his arrest and prosecution, complaining that New York City Mayor Eric Adams attended his first perp walk in the state.

"Frankly, your honor, the mayor should know more than anyone of the presumption of innocence," said attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo at the Monday morning hearing.

Mangione pleaded not guilty at the proceeding, which took place in the courtroom of New York Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro, a trial judge in Manhattan's state-level criminal court.

Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, following a five-day manhunt for the killer of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk. At Monday's hearing, the Ivy League graduate looked polished, wearing a maroon sweater over a white collared shirt. His wrists were bound with heavy shackles as he walked into the courtroom.

Adams, alongside New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, stood for dramatic photos at the Manhattan helipad where Mangione was flown in on Thursday.

A large group of police officers walked Mangione from the helicopter, making for images that went viral on social media.

"I wanted to look him in the eye to say that, 'You carried out this terrorist act in my city, the city that the people of New York love,' and I wanted to be there to show the symbolism of that," Adams later said.

A grand jury has indicted Adams on federal corruption charges alleging he took bribes from the Turkish government. He's pleaded not guilty.

"Frankly, I submit that he was trying to detract from those issues by making a spectacle of Mr. Mangione," Friedman Agnifilo said at Monday's hearing, according to Courthouse News reporter Erik Uebelacker.

Mangione previously appeared in Manhattan federal court Thursday afternoon on charges brought by the US Justice Department. He has been in federal custody in Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center.

The Manhattan District Attorney's office accused Mangione of first-degree murder "in furtherance of terrorism."

Federal prosecutors brought additional murder charges that, if Mangione is convicted, are death penalty eligible.

The district attorney's case will go to trial first, the Justice Department announced. A trial date has not yet been set.

• Luigi Mangione is in New York to face both state and federal murder charges.
• His new federal indictment alleges he stalked and then killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
• Manhattan prosecutors say state charges will "proceed in parallel with any federal case."

Luigi Mangione appeared in federal court Thursday on new federal murder charges that could result in the death penalty or life in prison.

It was Mangione's first appearance in a Manhattan courtroom, this one crowded with press and federal staff, on charges in the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. He is expected to be arraigned on state murder charges in a courthouse one block away on Friday.

Mangione's voice was calm but firm as he answered the judge's questions.

"Mr. Mangione, do you understand what you have been accused of?" US Magistrate Judge Katharine H. Parker asked at one point before he entered his plea.

"Yes," he answered.

Edward Y. Kim, the acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, has yet to say if he will seek the death penalty or a life sentence for the most serious charge in the four-count indictment — murder through the use of a firearm.

One former federal prosecutor called the death penalty a "remote" possibility, given Mangione's youth, and the chance that he may have suffered a mental breakdown in the six months before the shooting.

"In New York's federal courts, it's uncommon for them to seek the death penalty, and I think probably more uncommon for juries to want to authorize it, even assuming that Mr. Mangione killed Mr. Thompson in the way the government is alleging," said Michael Bachner, now in private practice.

The other three federal counts against Mangione allege he possessed and used an illegal firearm, and that he traveled interstate — between Georgia and New York, in order to stalk and kill Thompson.

Mangione presented an orderly, if tense, appearance in the chilly 26th-floor courtroom.

He was clean-shaven and his bushy eyebrows neatly groomed. Mangione sat with his shoulders raised and held stiff and wore khaki pants and a navy quarter-zip sweater over a white collared button-down shirt.

His ankles were shackled together with thick chains beneath the table where he sat. He wore bright orange slip-on sneakers without shoelaces.

To either side of Mangione sat his lawyers, husband-wife legal team Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Marc Agnifilo. Both are veteran criminal attorneys and former prosecutors. Their firm, Agnifilo Intrater, LLC, also represents Sean "Diddy" Combs in his federal sex-trafficking case, scheduled to be tried in the same Manhattan courthouse in May.

After Parker read the charges aloud to him, Mangione's posture relaxed. He repeatedly raised his left hand to pat down the hair at the back and side of his head.

He crossed his arms and wore a skeptical expression on his face with his tongue poking out between his lips while Friedman Agnifilo demanded clarity on how different law enforcement agencies coordinated and would present evidence in the case.

Mangione's next court date was set for January 18. His lawyers did not apply for bail, though Friedman Agnifilo said in court that she may do so on a future date.

Earlier Thursday, in a Pennsylvania courtroom, Mangione abandoned his extradition fight and was whisked to New York in an NYPD aviation plane and, upon landing at a Long Island airport, via police chopper to a lower Manhattan heliport.

His arrival in federal court was greeted by dozens of reporters and a smattering of fans holding messages of support written on cardboard.

"Health over Wealth," read one.

Mangione has yet to be arraigned on his first murder case, announced Tuesday by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

He faces up to life in prison on that state indictment, which alleges he murdered Thompson as an act of terror — a first-degree felony, the highest state charge and penalty available.

In a press statement after Mangione's federal appearance, Kim said he expects the state case — announced by Bragg just two days prior — would proceed to trial first.

In court Thursday, Friedman Agnifilo called the dual prosecutions "highly unusual" and said the charges between the Manhattan district attorney's office and the federal US attorney's office seemed to contradict each other.

The district attorney's indictment alleges Mangione killed Thompson in furtherance of "terrorism" that affects a "population of people," she said. But the federal charges accuse Mangione of stalking Thompson as an individual, she said.

Police and prosecutors say Mangione killed Thompson outside a midtown Manhattan hotel on December 4.

Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after a five-day manhunt, on local gun and false ID charges. A Manhattan grand jury later indicted on charges related to the killing itself, and the New York cases will take priority over the lesser charges in Pennsylvania.

While in jail in Pennsylvania, Mangione received 54 email messages and 87 pieces of mail, Maria Bivens, of the state Department of Corrections, told BI.

There were also 163 deposits made into Mangione's commissary account, Bivens said. Bivens declined to say how much money was deposited in total.

These accounts can be used to buy toiletries or additional food items in the jail's store.

• Luigi Mangione has been indicted in New York on a first-degree murder charge.
• Prosecutors say Mangione killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson "in furtherance of terrorism."
• Mangione's mother said killing Thompson was "something that she could see him doing," police said.

A Manhattan grand jury indicted Luigi Mangione on charges of first-degree murder, with prosecutors alleging he killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson "in furtherance of terrorism."

Prosecutors have also accused Mangione of second-degree murder, as well as a slew of counts related to the possession of an illegal "ghost gun" made from 3D-printed parts.

Following a five-day manhunt, Mangione was arrested last week at a restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on gun and false ID charges.

Police say he killed Thompson outside a midtown Manhattan hotel on December 4.

"This killing was intended to invoke terror," Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon, calling it a"brazen, targeted and premeditated shooting."

Prosecutors offered a detailed look at Mangione's movements Tuesday. They say he stayed at an Upper West Side hostel for more than a week, using a fake New Jersey ID, before carrying out the killing.

According to prosecutors, two of the shell casings for the bullets that killed Thompson had the words "DENY" and "DEPOSE" written on them. The word "DELAY" was written on a bullet found at the scene.

An arrest warrant previously obtained by Business Insider indicated that Mangione would be charged with second-degree murder along with four other charges related to illegal weapon possession. The first-degree murder charge reflects a more severe charge.

If Mangione, 26, is convicted of the first-degree murder charge, he could spend the rest of his life in prison without parole. The charge, with the intent to commit terrorism, refers to a killing that is "intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population" or "influence the policies of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion," according to the indictment.

Mangione has not yet entered a plea for any of the charges against him.

Even the minimum required sentence for first-degree murder, 25 to life, would mean Mangione would not see a parole officer until age 51.

The top charge could become a bargaining chip for Bragg, former Manhattan prosecutor Michael Bachner, who is now in private practice, told BI.

"Given the risk now of a maximum sentence of life without the possibility parole, that top terrorism count may induce the defendant to enter a plea, if one is offered," he said.

Jessica Tisch, the New York City police commissioner, lambasted the "ghoulish" online discourse valorizing Mangione for killing Thompson.

"Let me say this plainly — there is no heroism in what Luigi Mangione did," she said.

A Pennsylvania-based attorney for Mangione, an Ivy League graduate, has contested Mangione's extradition to Manhattan. At Tuesday's press conference, Bragg said he believed Mangione may change tack court proceedings Thursday and stop fighting extradition.

Over the weekend, Mangione hired Karen Friedman Agnifilo, an experienced New York-based criminal defense attorney who is married to and shares a law firm with Marc Agnifilo. Marc Agnifilo is representing Sean "Diddy" Combs in his criminal sex-trafficking case.

In an interview with CNN prior to taking on Mangione as a client, Friedman Agnifilio said the evidence was "overwhelming" that Mangione killed Thompson.

"It looks like to me there might be a 'not guilty by reason of insanity' defense that they're going to be thinking about because the evidence is going to be so overwhelming that he did what he did," she said.

Mangione left a robust online trail that went cold about six months before Thompson's killing. His mother filed a missing persons report in San Francisco in November, saying he had disappeared.

At Tuesday's press conference, Joe Kenny, the New York Police Department's chief of detectives, said the FBI contacted Mangione's mother on December 7, following a tip.

"She didn't indicate that it was her son in the photograph, but she said it might be something that she could see him doing," Kenny said.

• Luigi Mangione was arrested in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
• Rewards from NYPD Crime Stoppers and the FBI depend on Mangione's conviction, which may take time.
• The 911 caller and the restaurant patron who recognized Mangione may both be eligible.

After a densely eyebrowed man was caught on camera shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, authorities put a bounty on his head.

The New York Police Department's Crime Stoppers program offered a $10,000 reward for information that could lead to the killer's arrest or conviction. The Federal Bureau of Investigation followed suit, touting a $50,000 reward.

But the tipster who called 911 on Luigi Mangione needs Mangione, who was arrested Monday and accused of the killing, to be convicted before they get the money.

An ordinary Crime Stoppers reward is under $3,500. In those cases, tipsters can be paid upon arrest and indictment.

But when a reward is raised to exceed that amount, the money isn't disbursed until a conviction, either at trial or through a guilty plea, according to a spokesperson for the New York City Police Foundation, which administers the funds.

Officers in Altoona, Pennsylvania, arrested Mangione at a McDonald's restaurant, on charges that he lied about his identity and illegally carried a ghost gun police said was assembled from 3D-printed parts.

Mangione will likely be extradited to New York, where a warrant indicates he will be charged with murder, among other crimes. Mangione has not made any public statements since his arrest and has not yet entered a plea for the charges against him.

Thomas Dickey, an Altoona-based defense attorney representing Mangione on his Pennsylvania charges, didn't immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider.

According to New York Police Department officials, the 911 caller was a fast-food worker who was tipped off about Mangione by a restaurant patron.

Even though that person didn't call Crime Stoppers directly, they can still potentially receive the reward, according to the foundation spokesperson.

"The individual in Pennsylvania, who called in a tip, is eligible to receive the reward," the spokesperson told Business Insider.

More than one person could collect rewards

Crime Stoppers doesn't always pay out the maximum amount of their rewards. The total is determined by a board overseen by the foundation, which acts upon the recommendation of the commanding officer of the NYPD's Crime Stoppers unit.

Given the high profile of Thompson's killing, it's likely the tipster will be eligible for the full amount, Joe Giacalone, a former New York police officer who oversaw the unit, said.

"Since this was a national manhunt, I would assume they would ask for the highest amount of award," said Giacalone, now an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

The board would also decide whether the reward would go to either the restaurant patron, who first apparently recognized Mangione, or the employee who called 911, or both. Those details "would be ironed out between Crime Stoppers and the police foundation," the foundation spokesperson said.

"In the past, on other cases, sometimes they both get their reward," the spokesperson said. "Sometimes the reward is split half-and-half."

It's less clear whether the caller can get a piece of the FBI's $50,000 award anytime soon.

The language on the FBI poster offered money for "information leading to the arrest and conviction of the individual responsible for this crime," also indicating it wouldn't pay out unless a conviction is reached.

An FBI representative said tips from the public are among the agency's "best tools in preventing, detecting, and deterring crime." It did not answer questions about the Mangione tipster or its reward process.

"The FBI maintains longstanding policy not to confirm the identity of individuals who assist the FBI by providing tips or information," the representative said in an email. "Additionally, the FBI will not comment on whether reward money has been paid and to whom. The FBI takes this position for privacy protection, and to ensure the public's continued cooperation and incentivization with any future assistance."

Reward funds can help ease the financial burden of potential informants, whose lives may be transformed if they become cooperating witnesses or ultimately testify at trial. Former prosecutor Opher Shweiki said they were helpful in capturing and building the case against Ahmed Abu Khatallah, who was involved in the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack. The case was featured as one of the "Success Stories" from Rewards for Justice, a law enforcement program that works with the FBI to offer rewards.

"They're sometimes upending their lives," said Shweiki, now a national security partner at Akin Gump. "And so there's a lot that goes into that equation."

A conviction in the Thompson killing could take a long time if it happens at all. As Business Insider's Laura Italiano reported, a savvy lawyer could delay the Pennsylvania-to-New York extradition for years — and that would be before Mangione would be arraigned on murder charges, kicking off the formal process for the criminal case.

Mangione's folk hero status has led to a cascade of online threats against the employee who called 911, whose name has not been publicly disclosed. The fast food restaurant location where Mangione was arrested has beefed up security, Newsweek reported.

The ordinary NYPD Crime Stoppers procedure is designed to be completely anonymous to protect tipsters. Callers are given ID numbers, and their identities are not even known to police officers — even when they collect the reward.

Given the threats and heightened emotions surrounding the case, Giacalone said NYPD officials were wrong to disclose identifying information about the tipsters, including the restaurant where the call was made.

A spokesperson for the NYPD didn't immediately return a request for comment on the disclosure.

"It was a mistake," Giacalone said. "Because, if you're watching what people are saying online about this person, they're in danger. And so is their family."

For years before he was accused of killing the CEO of one of America's largest health-insurance companies, Luigi Mangione suffered from debilitating pain that doctors didn't seem able to fix.

He detailed the pain, and what he felt to be the healthcare system's inadequate response, in dozens of posts on Reddit between 2018 and 2024.

None of them, though, mention UnitedHealthcare or its CEO, Brian Thompson, whom he's now accused of killing. And none of the posts blame UnitedHealthcare — or Thompson — for his health issues. The only insurer mentioned is Blue Cross Blue Shield, in a brief post describing how it covered a medical test.

But his posts paint a portrait of someone whose pain and recovery led him to put "my life on hold in my 20s." And the experience appears to represent a significant — and excruciating — engagement with the American healthcare system. Like most young Americans, if Mangione was covered by his parents' health-insurance plan, he likely would have aged out when he turned 26 in May, under rules set by the Affordable Care Act.

In handwritten notes from 2019 reviewed by Business Insider, Mangione wrote that he had spondylolisthesis — severe slippage of parts of the spine due to joint deterioration.

In 2022, he described "near-constant burning/twitching in both ankles/calves." By 2023, he wrote on Reddit, he'd been experiencing "back and genital pain" on and off for a year, including numbness in his groin. (Details shared by the Reddit account match biographical details about Mangione sourced from public documents.)

He underwent surgery later that year. An X-ray image Mangione posted on social media depicted a spinal fusion, with rods and screws reinforcing the position of his bones. At first, he appeared jubilant — his pain was gone. But by June this year, he was castigating doctors as "basically worthless" on X.

Public records, social-media posts, and interviews indicate that Mangione cut off contact with family and friends earlier this year. Months later, police say Mangione murdered Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk, wielding a gun assembled from 3D printed parts.

The scion of a prominent Baltimore family, Mangione was educated at elite schools. Friends say they're now hard-pressed to recognize the kind, unassuming, and whip-smart person they know.

A classmate who led a student group at the University of Pennsylvania with Mangione in 2016 and 2017 said she recalled him as humble, helpful, and immensely driven. She asked not to be named given the intense focus on Mangione, but BI has confirmed her identity.

"I would set my sister or friend up with him," she said. "Just knowing his personality, I would completely trust him. Even knowing what I know now, if he 100% did it, I would feel completely safe being alone in a room with him."

A privileged youth

Mangione grew up in Towson, Maryland, about 10 miles outside Baltimore. His grandfather, Nick Mangione Sr., was a self-made multimillionaire, The Baltimore Banner reported. The elder Mangione, who died in 2008, owned and operated a sprawling portfolio of country clubs, nursing homes, and local radio stations. The younger Mangione is one of 37 grandchildren, part of a large family whose ranks also include a Maryland lawmaker.

Mangione's parents and immediate family did not respond to requests for comment.

Thomas J. Maronick Jr., an attorney and longtime host at one of the family's radio stations, told BI that the family was "very influential" in the local community, which was reeling from the news of Mangione's arrest.

"When you think of the Mangione family, you think of an esteemed family that has done a lot for the community," Maronick said on a phone call. "When I first heard the name, I thought it had to be a different family. It was very out of character for anything I've ever known about the family."

Mangione appeared well positioned to carry on the family's name.

He attended the Gilman School, a prestigious Baltimore-area all-boys school where tuition runs over $37,000 a year. There, he cofounded AppRoar Studios, a company that released a phone game; was in the school's robotics club; and graduated as valedictorian of the class of 2016.

Mangione was "very into sports" and "very social," a high-school classmate told BI. The classmate asked not to be named, but BI has verified their identity. "He was easily one of the smartest in our class. I never would have thought he would have been a part of this," the classmate added.

He went on to the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in four years with both a bachelor's and a master's degree in computer science, a university spokesperson said. He cofounded a video-game-design club and was inducted into the computer-engineering department's Eta Kappa Nu society for students at the top of their class, according to blog posts and the society's website.

He appeared active in his fraternity, photos posted on Instagram show.

Still, his health appeared to drag him down. In posts on Reddit, he described experiencing "brain fog." His "cognitive decline" started after he contracted Lyme disease at 13, he wrote, and worsened after his "very tame" but sleepless fraternity initiation. The fraternity did not respond to a request for comment.

He considered dropping out of college, he wrote, and felt that his condition restricted him to "what feels like 10% of a college experience."

"My symptoms were very minor at first and I was able to excel in high school, but the symptoms worsened exponentially last year," he wrote in 2018. "It's absolutely brutal to have such a life-halting issue."

In 2019, Mangione spent three months as a counselor for a Stanford summer program for high schoolers. He left a positive impression on the students, one of them said in posts on Instagram.

After college, he got a job as a data engineer at TrueCar, an online vehicle-purchase platform, and was regularly promoted, according to his LinkedIn profile and a former colleague.

By early 2022, he had moved to a coliving space in Hawaii called Surfbreak, according to photos posted on Instagram. R.J. Martin, the founder of Surfbreak, told Honolulu Civil Beat that Mangione founded a book club at the residence. On Martin's suggestion, one of the books discussed by the club was the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski's manifesto, Martin said.

Kaczynski, a Harvard-trained mathematician, lived in the wilderness and conducted a 17-year mail-bombing campaign against people he blamed for advancing technology at the expense of the natural environment.

Mangione gave the book four out of five stars on his Goodreads account.

"While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary," Mangione wrote in his review of the book.

The book club dissolved shortly thereafter, Martin told Civil Beat, amid discomfort with the manifesto.

Mangione detailed his back-pain journey on social media

In Hawaii, Mangione experienced another health setback. He'd had mild back pain since he was a child, but while surfing in early 2022, he "experienced sciatica for the first time," he wrote on Reddit. "A few weeks later I slipped on a piece of paper and my right glute locked and right leg shut down for a week. Couldn't support any weight on it."

Mangione, writing under the username Mister_Cactus, was a frequent poster in the spondylolisthesis subreddit. He exchanged notes with other people dealing with the condition and advised one poster how to persuade medical professionals to take symptoms seriously in the face of some doctors whose perspectives he decried as "nonsense."

"Tell them you are 'unable to work'/do your job. We live in a capitalist society," he wrote. "I've found that the medical industry responds to these key words far more urgently than you describing unbearable pain and how it's impacting your quality of life."

Martin told Honolulu Civil Beat that Mangione struggled with back pain throughout his time living at Surfbreak in 2022. In a separate interview, with The New York Times, Martin said that Mangione told him the lower vertebrae of his spine were nearly "a half-inch off" and had impeded his romantic life.

But by the next year, Mangione wrote that surgery had helped resolve his pain, at least for a time.

In one post, dated October 2023, he said back-fusion surgery had been "a success." After a week, he had no use for pain medication, he wrote.

"The surgery wasn't nearly as scary as I made it out to be in my head, and I knew it was the right decision within a week, and that I won't have to bother with injections or future surgery for many years," he wrote.

Mangione went dark earlier this year

In 2023, Mangione stopped working at TrueCar. The company laid off more than 100 employees that year. BI was unable to confirm the circumstances under which he left the company.

He appeared to spend early 2024 traveling around Asia, according to Reddit posts. In April, he emailed the author of a Substack he followed to say he would be in Japan through the beginning of May, according to a screenshot of the email the blogger shared on X.

His final Reddit post, in May, was to the Kaczynski subreddit; he shared a video lambasting Chinese social-media culture. On X, his final posts, on July 8, revealed a disenchantment with both the Democratic and the Republican political parties and support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The previous month, he'd reposted another user's skepticism with doctors.

"My experience with the medical profession — and yours is probably similar — is that doctors are basically worthless unless you carefully manage them, and 2/3 of them are worthless even in that case," the post said.

Afterward, both accounts went dark.

Maronick, the family friend, told BI that there had "been some rumblings" that Mangione hadn't been in touch with his family in "quite some time."

In July, an apparent friend posted on X suggesting that Mangione hadn't responded to messages in months.

"You made commitments to me for my wedding and if you can't honor them I need to know so I can plan accordingly," the user wrote to Mangione. (The user could not be reached for comment.)

In recent months, one of Mangione's cousins began reaching out to Mangione's friends to ask whether anyone had heard from him, his high-school classmate told BI. The classmate texted Mangione but never heard back.

Mangione's mother filed a missing-persons report in San Francisco on November 18, writing that she hadn't seen her son since July, according to the San Francisco Standard. In a statement released on Monday, a group of Mangione's cousins wrote they were "shocked and devastated by Luigi's arrest."

"We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved," the statement said.

Thompson was shot and killed on December 4 ahead of an annual investors meeting for UnitedHealth Group. Police say the bullet casings found on the scene had the words "delay," "deny," and "depose" written on them — which some have taken to be a reference to a book, "Delay, Deny, Defend," which details how insurance companies avoid paying medical bills.

Pennsylvania police, acting on a call from a McDonald's employee, found Mangione eating at a franchise location in Altoona. They say he had in his backpack a gun and a handwritten document expressing "ill will toward corporate America," with the phrase "these parasites had it coming."

Police arrested Mangione on forgery and gun charges. He is fighting extradition to New York, where he is expected to be charged with second-degree murder, a warrant obtained by BI shows. He has not formally entered a plea.

Thomas Dickey, an attorney representing Mangione, said in an interview on Tuesday that he had not seen "any evidence yet" that would implicate Mangione.

"I don't even know if this is him or whatever," he said. "So we're going to test those waters and give the government a chance to bring some evidence forward." Dickey did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mangione's high-school classmate said that nobody they knew recognized Mangione from the photos police released before his arrest. After law enforcement named Mangione as a suspect, though, "the eyebrows made sense," the classmate said.

At his initial court appearance Monday, a judge asked Mangione whether he was in touch with his family, multiple reports from outlets present at the arraignment said.

"Until recently," he responded.

Ana Altchek, Laura Italiano, and Natalie Musumeci contributed reporting.

• Jay-Z was named in an amended complaint to a lawsuit against Sean "Diddy" Combs, filed in October.
• The filing accuses Jay-Z and Combs of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl in 2000.
• Experts said that Jay-Z's response could have been stronger if it included an explicit denial of the claims.

Jay-Z's response to the rape accusations against him is missing something, according to one crisis-PR expert.

The "99 Problems" singer — whose real name is Shawn Carter — was accused in a civil lawsuit Sunday of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl at an MTV Video Music Awards after-party alongside Sean "Diddy" Combs in 2000.

Carter responded to the "heinous" allegations hours later in a statement posted on his company Roc Nation's X account, calling the accuser's attorney, Tony Buzzbee, "deplorable" and saying he engaged in "a blackmail attempt."

"Whoever would commit such a crime against a minor should be locked away, would you not agree?" the statement reads, in part. "These alleged victims would deserve real justice if that were the case."

Still, the statement doesn't include "a flat unmistakable denial that he'd ever engaged in behavior like that in this case or otherwise," said Evan Nierman, the CEO of crisis-PR firm Red Banyan.

"I think Jay-Z was strong in pointing out the heinous nature of the crimes and that he views them as unconscionable," Nierman said. "But I would've liked to have seen a little bit more of a flat denial."

The allegations against Carter stem from one of the slew of civil sexual assault lawsuits filed against Combs, who's in a Brooklyn jail while awaiting trial on separate criminal sex trafficking charges. Combs has denied the accusations against him.

In the original lawsuit, filed in October, the anonymous Jane Doe plaintiff from Alabama accused Combs of raping her at a party in New York City as two other unnamed celebrities watched. The stars were only identified in the civil lawsuit as "Celebrity A" and "Celebrity B."

The updated lawsuit filed Sunday identifies Carter as "Celebrity A."

The other celebrity was described as a "female" but has otherwise not been identified in court documents.

Attorneys for Carter and Combs did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider. A day after Carter's statement was published, his lawyer, Alex Spiro, more forcefully denied the allegations in a court filing.

"For the avoidance of doubt, Mr. Carter is entirely innocent," he wrote. "This is a shakedown."

A PR expert says Jay-Z's statement had 'bravado'

In his social media statement, Carter took aim at Buzbee, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiff, and said that his lawyer "received a blackmail attempt" to pressure him into settling out of court. He has separately filed an extortion lawsuit against Buzzbee.

Buzbee told Business Insider that he sent a letter to Carter requesting that Carter and the plaintiff mediate before Sunday's filing.

The amended complaint said Carter responded to the letter by filing a lawsuit and "orchestrating a conspiracy of harassment, bullying, and intimidation" to silence the accuser from naming him.

Camron Dowlatshahi, a partner at Los Angeles-based Mills Sadat Dowlat LLP, told Business Insider that the back-and-forth negotiations referenced by Carter are typical, "especially in a case involving a high-profile individual."

What caught peoples' attention was the more casual tone of Jay-Z's statement, which includes informally styled words in all caps and a sentence that ends with two exclamation points.

"He infused it with the kind of bravado that he's known for," Nierman told Business Insider. By reiterating his rough upbringing — "I'm a young man who made it out of the project of Brooklyn" — Nierman added that he's "saying, 'You misjudged me by trying to play with me the way you deal with other people.'"

Despite the informal tone, Dowlatshahi said it's highly likely that the statement was crafted with lawyers and publicists.

"I thought it was unorthodox but important to come from him," Dowlatshahi told Business Insider. "It personalizes everything that he's going through instead of being defensive."

Carter's statement said his accuser's lawyer should "file a criminal complaint, not a civil one!!" Still, only prosecutors representing the government, not individual accusers, can file criminal indictments.

Damian Williams, the US Attorney overseeing the criminal case against Combs in Manhattan, told Business Insider in October that the "investigation is very active and ongoing" when asked whether additional people would be charged.

Nierman and Dowlatshahi said it was nonetheless smart for Carter to point out that he was not charged with a crime.

"Something involving essentially a rape of a 13-year-old is not something that you have an afterthought about and amend your complaint about," Dowlatshahi said. "It's something that's at the forefront of a case, and typically a criminal case."

Experts don't think the allegations will tarnish Jay-Z's reputation if it's an isolated incident

Nierman and Dowlatshahi think Jay-Z is too rich and powerful for his reputation to ultimately be damaged by the suit.

He's "too big to cancel, and his brand is too strong to be destroyed by a civil lawsuit," Nierman said.

Dowlatshahi agreed. "Right now, this is a pretty contained isolated thing."

If more allegations against Carter surface or he faces criminal charges, indictments, or arrests, it could be career-ending.

"This is a civil lawsuit being filed by an attorney who's been very aggressive about his demand letters and going after celebs in the interest of securing financial settlements for his client," Nierman said. "So I don't see this as creating a permanent stain on Jay-Z's brand."

Nierman and Dowlatshahi said that Carter's mention of the allegations' impact on conversations with his kids, whom he shares with Beyoncé, also humanized him outside his celebrity persona.

Nierman said that Carter made his response "personal" by directly questioning Buzbee's integrity and values. "When you come out of the gates with such a strong statement like what Jay-Z made, and you make it so personal, both in his defense of himself and his attack on his accuser, he's already set," Nierman said. "It's going to be very hard to come back from that. So I expect him to be extremely aggressive in defending his reputation."

On Monday, Carter's lawyer filed a flurry of motions in federal court to dismiss the case or disclose the accuser's identity in the civil lawsuit.

"These claims are not about justice for victims. Nor are they about giving victims of sexual violence a voice," Carter's attorney Alex Spiro wrote in a filing. "Instead, they are merely the next chapter in Attorney Buzbee's sprawling extortion saga — a saga whose aim is base and measured in dollars."

Spiro didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Dowlatshahi said this is a common next step as Carter's team explores every possible option to defeat the claims. In Nierman's view, the aggressive strategy is working in the court of public opinion.

"Jay-Z is not going to be defined by these allegations," Nierman said. "I don't think that this is even going to be a footnote to his obituary."

• Luigi Mangione has been charged with murder in UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's killing.
• Mangione, an Ivy League graduate from a wealthy family, left an online trail before his arrest.
• He founded an app, talked about AI on X, and read the Unabomber Manifesto.

Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old Ivy League graduate charged with murder in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has a vast online trail.

Police arrested Mangione in Pennsylvania on December 9. He initially faced local gun and forgery charges. He's expected to be extradited to New York.

New York court documents show that in addition to one count of murder, he also faces two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, one count of second-degree possession of a forged document, and one count of third-degree criminal possession of a firearm.

Here's what to know about Mangione.

Mangione attended elite schools

Mangione graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2020.

He achieved a Bachelor of Science in engineering with a major in computer science and a minor in mathematics. He also received a Master of Science in engineering the same year with a major in computer and information science, a university spokesperson told Business Insider.

Before that, he attended Gilman School, an elite all-boys preparatory school in Baltimore. His yearbook entry, obtained by BI, says he was involved in robotics and Model United Nations.

In his valedictorian speech, Mangione praised classmates for "challenging the world" and thanked parents for sending their children to the fee-paying school, which he described as "far from a small financial investment."

He favorably reviewed the Unabomber Manifesto

On Goodreads, Mangione reviewed Ted Kaczynski's "Industrial Society and Its Future" book, also known as The Unabomber Manifesto, in early 2024. He gave it four out of five stars.

"He was a violent individual — rightfully imprisoned — who maimed innocent people," Mangione wrote. "While these actions tend to be characterized as those of a crazy luddite, however, they are more accurately seen as those of an extreme political revolutionary."

Mangione's review of the manifesto also quoted another online comment about the book, which appears to have originated on Reddit, praising the use of violence "when all other forms of communication fail."

"'Violence never solved anything' is a statement uttered by cowards and predators,'" Mangione quoted.

He founded an app and worked in tech

In 2015, while in high school, Mangione founded a company called AppRoar Studios. AppRoar released an iPhone game called "Pivot Plane" that's no longer available, but a reviewer in 2015 said it was "a fun little arcade game brought to you by 3 high school juniors."

He lived in a co-living space in Hawaii as recently as 2023.

He posed for photos indicating he participated in Greek life at the University of Pennsylvania.

The fraternity chapter represented in his photos couldn't be reached for comment.

A blog post on the University of Pennsylvania's website that was removed on December 9 said he cofounded a video game design club there.

Stephen Lane, a professor of video game design at the Ivy League university who didn't advise the club, told BI that "the fact he took the initiative and started something from nothing, that means at least in the context of Penn, that's a pretty good thing." He added, however, that Thompson's shooting was "obviously not a good thing."

Mangione's LinkedIn page says he worked as a data engineer at the vehicle shopping company TrueCar starting in 2020.

A TrueCar spokesperson told BI that Mangione hadn't worked for the company since 2023.

Online breadcrumbs and roommate say he dealt with back pain

At the top of Mangione's profile on X — formerly Twitter — is a triptych of three images: a photo of himself, smiling, shirtless on a mountain ridge; a Pokémon; and an X-ray with four pins or screws visible in the lower back.

The Pokémon featured in his cover image is Breloom, which has special healing abilities in the games.

Some of the books reviewed on Mangione's Goodreads account are related to health and healing back pain, including "Back Mechanic: The Secrets to a Healthy Spine Your Doctor Isn't Telling You" and "Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery."

R.J. Martin, the founder of the co-living space in Hawaii, told the Honolulu Civil Beat that Mangione had suffered back pain from a misaligned vertebra that was pinching his spinal cord.

Martin told CNN that after leaving Hawaii, Mangione texted him to say he'd undergone surgery and sent him X-rays.

"It looked heinous, with just, giant screws going into his spine," Martin told the outlet.

It's not immediately clear whether the surgery was related to UnitedHealthcare.

Josiah Ryan, a spokesperson for the co-living space founder, told The Wall Street Journal that Mangione stopped replying to texts about six months ago and "sort of disappeared."

A YouTube spokesperson said that the platform had terminated Mangione's three accounts, adding that they had not been active for about seven months.

A senior police official told NBC New York on December 12 that Magione was never a UnitedHealthcare client and may have targeted Thompson because of the insurer's large size and outsize power. That same day, The Wall Street Journal reported that a company spokesperson said Magione was not a client.

Mangione was interested in AI

On his X account, Mangione posted and amplified posts about technological advances such as artificial intelligence. He also posted about fitness and healthy living.

He frequently reposted posts by the writer Tim Urban and the commentator Jonathan Haidt about the promise and perils of technology.

He also appeared to be a fan of Michael Pollan, known for his writing about food, ethics, and lab-grown meat.

On Goodreads, he praised Urban's book "What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies," describing it as "one of the most important philosophical texts of the early 21st century."

Urban posted to X on December 9: "Very much not the point of the book."

He was previously accused of trespassing

Before his arrest, Mangione had at least one encounter with the legal system. Hawaiian court records indicate that in 2023, he was accused of entering a forbidden area of a state park.

Mangione appears to have paid a $100 fine to resolve the matter.

Mangione comes from a wealthy and influential Baltimore family

Mangione is one of 37 grandchildren of the late Nick Mangione Sr., a prominent multimillionaire real-estate developer in Baltimore who died in 2008, The Baltimore Banner reported. Nick Mangione Sr. had 10 children, including Louis Mangione, Luigi Mangione's father.

Members of the Mangione family own the Turf Valley Resort in Ellicott City, Maryland, and Hayfields Country Club in Hunt Valley, Maryland.

One of Luigi Mangione's cousins is the Republican Maryland state legislator Nino Mangione, the Associated Press reported.

Representatives for Nino Mangione's office, in a statement to BI, declined to comment on the news of Luigi Mangione's arrest.

"Unfortunately, we cannot comment on news reports regarding Luigi Mangione," the statement read. "We only know what we have read in the media. Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi's arrest. We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved. We are devastated by this news."

The Mangione family has donated more than $1 million to the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, where all of Nick Mangione Sr.'s grandkids, including Luigi Mangione, were born, the Banner reported.

A public filing from 2022 for the nonprofit Mangione Family Foundation lists Louis Mangione as vice president.

He was arrested while on his laptop at a McDonald's, the police said

When the police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, responded to a McDonald's after a call about a suspicious person, they found Mangione sitting at a table looking at a silver laptop and wearing a blue medical mask, a criminal complaint said.

The complaint said that when asked for identification, Mangione gave police officers a New Jersey driver's license with the name "Mark Rosario."

When an officer asked Mangione whether he'd been to New York recently, he "became quiet and started to shake," the complaint said.

It added that Mangione correctly identified himself after officers told him he could be arrested for lying about his identity.

When asked why he lied, Mangione replied, "I clearly shouldn't have," the complaint said.

His motive is still not known, but police are analyzing his so-called manifesto

An internal NYPD report obtained by The New York Times said Mangione "likely views himself as a hero of sorts who has finally decided to act upon such injustices."

Mangione "appeared to view the targeted killing of the company's highest-ranking representative as a symbolic takedown and a direct challenge to its alleged corruption and 'power games,' asserting in his note he is the 'first to face it with such brutal honesty,'" according to the NYPD report by the department's Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau, the Times reported.

Moments before the December 10 extradition hearing began, Mangione, handcuffed and wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, shouted out to the press as Pennsylvania police escorted him into the courthouse.

Mangione yelled out something partially unintelligible, saying something was "completely out of touch" and "an insult to the American people." He also shouted that something was a "lived experience" as a group of officers led him into the courthouse.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told NBC New York that Mangione had prior knowledge that UnitedHealthcare would be having its annual conference in New York City.

Mangione has retained a high-profile New York attorney

Thomas Dickey emerged as Mangione's attorney in Pennsylvania after his arrest in Altoona on December 9.

During a December 10 hearing at Pennsylvania's Blair County Courthouse, Dickey told the judge that Mangione was contesting his extradition to New York City.

Dickey later told reporters that Mangione would plead not guilty to all the charges in Pennsylvania. During an interview with CNN, Dickey said he expected Mangione to plead not guilty to the second-degree murder charge in New York and that he hadn't seen evidence that authorities "have the right guy."

Karen Friedman Agnifilo will represent Mangione in New York, a representative for Agnifilo Intrater LLP confirmed to Business Insider on Sunday.

Friedman Agnifilo worked as the chief assistant district attorney at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office from 2014 to 2021. She pivoted to private practice in 2021.

Do you know Luigi Mangione? Have a tip? Reach out to [email protected].