Lawyer of suspect in healthcare exec killing explains client’s outburst at jail

Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old suspect in the New York murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is agitated and irritated about his treatment since he was arrested on Monday and held in a Pennsylvania jail, according to his lawyer.

Thomas Dickey, a veteran Pennsylvania trial lawyer who began representing Mangione on Tuesday, said that his client’s angry outburst as he was being led into an extradition hearing earlier this week was a product of his frustration.

“He’s irritated, agitated about what’s happening to him and what he’s being accused of,” the attorney told CNN.

Mangione cried out cryptic words when he was outside the Blair county, Pennsylvania, courthouse where he faces extradition to New York on murder and other charges. Dressed in an orange jumpsuit, he shouted out: “It’s completely out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people and their lived experience!”

0:37 Suspect in UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting shouts outside court hearing – video

Dickey said Mangione’s anger was in part because of his lack of legal representation until that moment. After the lawyer and Mangione met, his demeanor changed, Dickey told CNN.

“Look at the difference between when he went in and when he came out, once he … finally had legal representation and now he has a spokesperson and someone that’s going to fight for him.”

Thompson, 50, was killed on 4 December in midtown Manhattan as he was walking to attend UnitedHealthcare’s annual investors’ meeting. The commissioner of the New York police department, Jessica Tisch, announced that detectives had made a positive match between the ghost gun that the suspect had in his possession when he was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and three 9mm shell casings at the murder scene.

The casings had the words “delay”, “deny” and “depose” written on them in a possible echo of a 2010 book criticizing the healthcare insurance industry titled Delay, Deny, Defend.

Tisch has also said that police have made a match between Mangione’s fingerprints and those retrieved from a water bottle and snack bar wrapper found at the crime scene.

Dickey has questioned the credibility of police statements, urging the public to keep an open mind about his client. He told CNN that until he had seen the evidence and had a chance to interrogate it, such claims should be treated with caution.

The match between the gun and the shell casings was made on the basis of fingerprints and ballistics, he said. “Those two sciences, in and of themselves, have come under some criticism in the past, relative to their credibility, their truthfulness, their accuracy.”

On the evidence, he said: “As lawyers, we need to see it. We need to see: how did they collect it? How much of it? And then we would have our experts … take a look at that, and then we would challenge its admissibility and challenge the accuracy of those results.”

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Mangione is fighting extradition to New York. His next court appearance is scheduled for 23 December.

He is being held in a cell on his own, away from other inmates, at a Pennsylvania state institution, SCI Huntingdon. While News Nation was broadcasting live from outside the correctional facility on Wednesday, inmates screamed out of their cells to complain about the conditions they and Mangione are being held in.

“Conditions suck!” one inmate could be heard yelling.

The NYPD’s ongoing investigation into the CEO’s murder is focusing on a possible motive. Law enforcement officials have said that when the suspect was arrested he was carrying a notebook that talked about killing an executive at a corporate event.

Officials told the New York Times that the notebook contained the passage: “What do you do? You wack the CEO at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention. It’s targeted, precise, and doesn’t risk innocents.”

Police say they also found on Mangione’s possession a three-page handwritten note which they have described as a manifesto.