The top federal prosecutor in Manhattan has been recused from Luigi Mangione’s case.
“The Government also writes to inform the Court that United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, is recused from this matter,” attorneys from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said in a letter to Judge Margaret Garnett on Wednesday.
Newsweek has contacted the district for comment via email. Mangione’s attorneys have also been contacted for comment via email. Luigi Mangione in court
Mangione, 26, is facing federal and state charges in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a New York City hotel in December.
He pleaded not guilty to a federal murder charge last Friday. Federal prosecutors have declared their intent to seek the death penalty. Mangione pleaded not guilty to state murder and terrorism charges in December.
The letter did not explain why Clayton recused from the case, but said that Perry Carbone, the district’s criminal division chief, will serve as the attorney for the United States in the case.
“Mr. Carbone has conveyed the same to the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, which confirmed that it will in turn notify the Attorney General,” the letter said.
President Donald Trump announced in April that Clayton, a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, would serve as interim U.S. attorney for Southern District of New York while the administration pursues Senate confirmation for him to serve in the role full-time.
Wednesday’s letter also amended an earlier letter to Garnett that described the handling of a recorded jail call between Mangione and his attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo.
The earlier letter has said that a paralegal at the New York County District Attorney’s Office (DANY) had “immediately stopped listening” to the call after recognizing it as an attorney call.
“In fact, the paralegal listened to the entire call, then subsequently informed DANY prosecutors about the identities of the people with whom the defendant spoke,” Wednesday’s letter said.
“DANY thereafter handled the matter as described in our previous letter. Moreover, DANY notified defense counsel of these facts in an email, dated April 22, 2025, thus, counsel was aware of this information prior to arraignment.”
Mangione is next due in federal court on December 5. His next appearance in the state case is set for June 26.
No trial date has been set in either case, but his defense team have said they want the federal case to take precedent because it involves the death penalty.
Why?
Because he’s innocent until proven guilty, and the proof we’ve seen is extremely weak. If he can’t be proven guilty on the stength of that evidence, then he is innocent.
He was hanging out with me that entire week.
I can confirm, I was there too
The photos they have with Luigi’s face exposed were taken 3 miles from the shooting. His jacket doesn’t match what the shooter was wearing. His backpack doesn’t match the shooter’s backpack. His eyes and eyebrows look nothing like the shooter’s. Luigi was framed. My opinion is that after the shooting, the cops had AI look for a matching image on all the cameras they had access to. Luigi’s clothes looked similar enough for the AI and the cops just rolled with it. NYPD and prosecutors are well known for framing people. Look up the Central Park Five.
FTFY.
The pictures from the hostel check-in, with his face, were taken almost 2 weeks before the shooting, which leaves plenty of room in the prosecution’s timeline for a change of jackets.
Also leaves plenty of time for him to have left town. The only pictures they have of the man’s face are from weeks before the shooting.
Eh. I think Luigi probably did it and the sketchiness around his arrest is because the cops found him with a real time facial recognition tracking system they don’t want the public to know about. You might be right though, I support him even if he’s innocent 😉
You can cover 3 miles in a few minutes in NYC.
He could have changed his backpack.
His face wasn’t visible in the pictures of the shooting, the ones I saw at least.
NYPD might be famous for framing people, but they also catch real murderers sometimes, in high or low profile cases.
Occam’s razor says he did shoot the guy.
Occam’s razor is your argument?
What requires fewer assumptions? A person without a criminal record bolts across town while changing into slightly different clothes and s different backpack and assassinates a CEO, or that someone else did it and the police department notorious for framing people in high profile cases framed someone?
Yes you can cover 3 miles and he could have changed all of his clothes. He also could have been still 3 miles away when the shooting happened and not changed any of his clothes. If the police want to use the photo evidence they have NOW as evidence, they need a video of Luigi changing jackets and backpacks. Without it, they are just using a crappy AI match to target an innocent man. Did he also shave off his eyebrows just before the shooting and grow them back in a couple of days? He probably switched his Sicilian eyes for some Slavic eyes while he was at it.
Bringing up Occam’s razer when it’s clearly 3 different people is crazy work.
I mean, what else was he supposed to shave his eyebrows off with so the photos match up?
You know what, at this point I’m starting to believe United Healthcare’s CEO wasn’t even killed, it’s a setup. Think about it: the guy was divorced, probably with large sums to pay each month for his ex-wife and children who didn’t like him. He made decisions that killed people, he knew about growing anti-healtcare / anti-billionaire sentiment in the US and felt his life was at risk. What better plan than faking your own death, especially in a high profile case like this when you’re guaranteed that NYPD would frame someone who would take all the attention away from you while you’re quietly fleeing the country. 4d chess right there.
The rich are not wise or practiced enough for 4d chess. Everyone needs to stop assuming the wealthy are challenged enough to grow such skills.
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He was hanging with me that afternoon, there’s no way it could’ve been him
And right after he left your place we spent some time together drinking coffee and fiddling around with classic video games.
So far there isn’t any proof that he is.
If I understand the judicial system, the prosecution has to make that proof. So yeah as long as the trial hasn’t started there shouldn’t be any proof.
Yeah, them making the proof sounds right up their alley.
And until that happens, he isn’t the shooter.
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For the same reason United Healthcare didn’t murder sick people
And what’s that reason?
I saw a lot of comments saying Luigi didn’t do it, but no convincing argument. Personally I think he shot the guy (but I’m open to change my mind) and that he’s some kind of hero for it.
I think Mojo’s comment is meant sarcastically. I.e. UCH does murder sick people.
But to your question: the presumption of innocence. You’ve got the burden-of-proof backwards; it’s not “prove he didn’t commit murder” but rather “prove he did”. What I’ve seen is: some blurry pictures of a white man with brown hair in NYC, security footage of a white man with brown hair doing the killing, and the police say that they found a confession-manifesto and a ghost-gun on Mangione when they arrested him.
As a white man with brown hair who doesn’t trust the police, I feel concerned about this standard of evidence!
The physical evidence would seem pretty strong but: a manifesto is something you mail, not carry around with you waiting to be arrested. And a ghost-gun is something you throw away immediately, not hang on to across state lines.
My main point here isn’t that it’s a slam-dunk “no possible way he could have done it”. But that it’s just not a ton of evidence. And the pressure to get a conviction and execute someone is incredibly strong. I’d say there’s decent evidence that the NYC cops are corrupt and setting up an innocent man to make themselves look good. If we’re going to jump to a verdict before the trial, what made you pick the one you picked?
I agree with your point, I’m not really convinced he’s the shooter but the general feeling I have, from my limited knowledge of how the police, the judicial system and murderers work, the pictures that everyone saw and all, is that there’s a real possibility he’s the shooter. But of course we have to let the courts decide.
I’m just tired of everyone saying he didn’t do it based on nothing more than anecdotal evidence and a general hatred for anything that looks like a cop.
I’m old enough to have known a time when online discussion was mostly rational and respectful, and it bothers me how it has slowly become so polarized and emotional.
“I’m just tired of everyone saying he didn’t do it based on nothing more than anecdotal evidence…”
Oh, but you’re fine with the cops using weak, disjointed evidence that’s not in any way conclusive? Jeeze, it almost sounds like you’re using motivated reasoning just as much as everyone else!
Besides, the standard is supposed to be, “innocent until proven guilty”, not “I trust the cops more than my own lying eyes”…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence
I don’t disagree with you, but I don’t put a lot of value in that judgement. Like, if I was the VP of Denying Claims at UnitedHealthcare, I guess I would avoid being in a room with him and a gun just to be safe? I donno…
When I see people saying he’s definitely innocent, I mostly read that as a reaction against the media which portrays all suspects as 100% guilty. And that’s a pretty fucked-up thing, right? Like, suppose there’s a real trial and we all get to see that the evidence against Manione is garbage and that he’s clearly innocent and he gets correctly exonerated. Even still, he’ll spend the rest of his life as “Luigi, that dude who killed the CEO!” because that’s what people saw on TV long before his trial.
The eyebrows aren’t the same, he couldn’t have grown eyebrows that quickly.
Also, the burden of proof is on the prosecutor, how can we prove he’s innocent? It’s up to them to prove he’s guilty. And there’s no proof that it’s him, only a motive.
Okay… seems like you need some help. Commentors are suggesting that it wasn’t Luigi because they don’t want him imprisioned or executed if he’s found guilty. That’s why people are claiming “Luigi was hanging out with me during the murder” or “that’s not Luigi in the photos, eyebrows don’t match” and etc. Even if you disagree with those statements, you should play along if you think Luigi is a hero of sorts.
The eyebrows not matching is, in fact, a fact. Not a random joke in support…
I agree, what’s the problem?
It’s very weird to see people say they love this guy for being such a revolutionary action based chad sticking-it-to-the-man straight shooter. And then you ask “Because he shot a CEO of an Insurance Company?” and they say “No.”
At least with OJ, the premise of his innocence was that he actually didn’t shoot Nicole Brown Simpson and the police were just being racist against a black celebrity. But juggling the contradiction on Luigi is just mind numbing.
First of all, I think Luigi is innocent. Honestly, and also due to the way we SHOULD think about this, innocent until PROVEN guilty.
However I also feel 0 sympathy for the CEO. Did he deserve to die? Who knows, probably. The shit insurance companies profit off of is disgusting. There’s I think an actual case for “self defense” if they ever find who actually shot him, because of the death toll that private health insurance has contributed to.
In my own experience, these are two different people.
One who hasn’t thought about the actual evidence or legal burden. They just saw on the news that the suspect is definitely guilty and their reaction is: “yeah, guilty of killing someone who deserved to die. Rock on murderer-dude.”
The other person is thinking about the law and the evidence presented so far and finds it pretty thin. They might or might not feel like healthcare CEOs should be executed, but I have not heard this type of person lauding Mangione for the killing because they are skeptical that he had anything to do with it.
It may be that your friends are less internally-consistent.
I mean I’ll say it, yeah it’s because he (whoever he was) shot someone that indirectly killed thousands upon thousand for money. Am I supposed to feel bad for that? Is killing one person with a gun somehow worse?
He didn’t “indirectly” kill, his policies killed them. Its no more indirect than a Mob Boss ordering one of his men to kill an enemy. That murder is a direct result of the Mob Boss’ demands, as surely as if he pulled the trigger himself.
This CEO was a Corporate Serial Killer for Profit, and whoever killed him was “acting in defense of others,” and is not guilty of murder.
He did not shoot the guy, but he has a recognizable face, name and background so we just roll with it. It doesn’t matter if he’s the shooter or not, the shooter is a hero what the internet calls Luigi isn’t the individual anymore, but the idea behind him.