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Now: Health Care CEO Murder Suspect in NY Courtroom; Now: Luigi Mangione Making First Federal Court Appearance; Health Care CEO Murder Suspect's First Fed Court Appearance Has Started; CEO Murder Suspect's Attorneys Not Seeking Bail for Now; Health Care CEO Murder Suspect's First Fed Court Appearance Ends. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired December 19, 2024 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[15:00:06]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We begin this hour of CNN News Central with breaking news. I'm Boris Sanchez alongside Brianna Keilar in our nation's capital.

Luigi Mangione right now is in a federal courtroom in New York facing a federal judge amid new charges from the Department of Justice. He allegedly shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in the back, killing the father of two on December 4th.

This is separate from the New York State murder charges because Mangione is now facing a federal murder charge along with other federal charges, including stalking. And this federal complaint also reveals some new details.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Investigators say a notebook found on Mangione included an August entry that said, quote, "the target is insurance." The 26-year-old high school valedictorian landed in New York this afternoon. You saw those - that video and here's a picture of it here as he was escorted to a van from a helicopter. He was surrounded by New York officers and also officials, even including the mayor, Eric Adams. The mayor later called those who cheer the suspects' alleged violence as vile.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz outside of the federal courthouse there in New York.

Shimon, give us the latest here.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Okay. So we can say now that the hearing is underway. The first appearance for Luigi Mangione on the federal charges is now underway. He is seated between his attorneys at this moment, according to our Kara Scannell, who is inside the courtroom watching all these unfold.

So he's in court. The judge will start the proceeding. There will be a series of questions. He will be told what his charges are. Those four counts - very serious four counts.

I do want to note about what he looks like. He is no longer wearing that orange prison jumpsuit that we have seen him now as he was leaving Pennsylvania, being brought here by plane and helicopter. He is now in street clothes. He's wearing a, give me one second, a white button-down shirt, a navy three quarter zip pullover and khaki pants.

So his attorneys, it appears, when they arrived here, they brought clothes for him to change in so he doesn't have to appear before this judge in that orange prison jumpsuit. He is now wearing street clothes. And that hearing, as I said, is now underway.

So just one other thing I want to read here from our producer there inside who says that he came into custody at approximately 1 PM. He was transported to the Southern District of New York, which is the courthouse behind me, by NYPD personnel and then the FBI. And so the FBI took him into custody and so we are here today.

They also said the prosecutors are now saying that the victim's family has been notified, so they are aware of these federal charges. We know that the Manhattan DA's office has been in touch with them, and now federal prosecutors here from the Southern District of New York and the FBI as well are in touch with them.

And so that hearing, as I said, is now underway. And so we await for what happens here. Really the key here also is that we're going to get to hear from his attorneys, hopefully in some - in more - with more information, more in-depth than we have from statements that they have made to us, written statements and comments on their way in.

Both the attorneys did not want to speak. But hopefully, when they come out, they will say something. Because I do think this - the way in which all of this has unfolded certainly caught many of us by surprise. We were all set to be in a state court today. There was a whole process laid out where he would make an appearance on the state charges.

And then all of a sudden this morning, we started getting word that everything was going to change and that the FBI was going to arrest him, that he was going to be taken into custody on federal charges.

And just how everything has been done in this case, from the way he was transported, flown here, the helicopter, you know, the walk that they did from the helicopter, the NYPD and the FBI into a waiting van, and just the whole circumstances around all of this, certainly unprecedented.

I mean, I've never seen anything like this. I've been covering courts here. I've been covering law enforcement here over 20 years and it's just so remarkable about how everything is being done here. It'd be interesting to hear what the attorneys think of it.

And I think also interesting to see if Luigi Mangione even understands what's going on. So we wait to hear about what happens here in court and perhaps to hear from his attorneys once the hearing is over.

[15:04:59]

SANCHEZ: And Shimon, this federal complaint revealing some new details about the evidence against him, walk us through those details.

PROKUPECZ: So just some more information from court before we get to that, I'm reading here. It says that Mangione answered yes. So we heard from him in court. He answered yes twice to confirm he understands his rights and he has seen the federal complaint against him.

The judge, who is Judge Parker, is reviewing the charges in the complaint. So as this first appearance gets underway, as we expected, they are now - the judge is now explaining the charges to him, Luigi Mangione answering yes twice to the judge, confirming he understands his rights and he has seen the federal charges against him.

His attorneys would have shown that to him. They met with him right before the court proceeding. And now the judge is going through that process with him, as we would normally see in a first appearance. But this is quite different than most cases and anything we have seen certainly in quite some time.

To your question, Boris, the notebook; the notebook is a key piece of evidence here for the FBI and for federal prosecutors. From what they lay out in the federal complaint, there is new information. And that new information has to deal with the planning that went into this, the entries that Mangione made in October talking about this.

Then again, in August, where he wrote about how he waited to do this, that he's happy he procrastinated because allegedly it gave him more time to learn about things. The other thing about the notes is the focus and how he allegedly talks about the insurance companies and also talks about this one very striking quote in the pages of the notebook, in allegedly Mangione's handwriting, where he writes the word wack.

And it's quoted as the word wack, W-A-C-K, allegedly referring to the CEO and saying how he would do this attack at this conference. So key pieces of evidence for prosecutors, but I thought that word was just so striking to hear that word, to hear that, to see that in that complaint.

And again, the complaint really talks about a lot of the evidence that the NYPD had gathered. That evidence is now in the hands of federal prosecutors and the FBI. And the other thing now, these charges are much different.

Look, certainly the state charges were very significant. He was facing life in prison. But now he's eligible because of these federal charges. He could be eligible for the death penalty. That is a decision that will be made, you know, far down the line during the Trump administration under the new attorney general, who will have to personally make that decision.

So certainly a long road ahead for Luigi Mangione now that he's facing potentially the death penalty. In terms of the state case, we'll see where that goes and if he really ever appears in a state court on those murder charges.

SANCHEZ: Shimon Prokupecz live outside the federal courthouse in New York. Please keep us up to date with what's happening behind closed doors.

Again, cameras not allowed inside the courtroom, but we do have reporters there in the room.

Let's dig deeper on this now with John Miller. He's a CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst. We also have Misty Marris, a trial and defense attorney. Thank you both for being with us.

Misty, first to you.

I'm struck by the fact that Mangione changed out of that orange jumpsuit and he's now wearing street clothes, apparently dressed kind of a bit like a prepster. He's wearing like a white button-down shirt, a navy pullover, khaki pants. Why would his attorneys have him change before going into federal court?

MISTY MARRIS, TRIAL ATTORNEY: Well, this was very interesting today because the federal government generally doesn't do what we call a perp walk. But that is what we saw happening from that helipad all the way to the courthouse.

So it's likely that his attorneys made a request that he is able to appear not in that orange jumpsuit. Part of that can be to avoid prejudice down the line very often. That type of thing can matter, that they don't want the person to be viewed as guilty before stepping into trial. It is absolutely an attorney's request that was made that was granted by the judge in this instance.

KEILAR: And John, talk about this perp walk that we're watching here. It was extraordinary.

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, it certainly is a spectacle. But it was one by design. First of all, you have the NYPD transporting him from Pennsylvania. They are met there by the FBI, who is going to take him into custody and accompany him to that U.S. magistrate's courtroom, where they're going to talk about the charges he's facing.

[15:10:05]

But you also have a really unusual defendant here, who is someone who usually, when they surround somebody with this kind of security and protection, it's because they feel that somebody may try to attack them for what they have done. In this case, the security around him is really for the opposite, which is they believe that there is so much support that they've seen online and additional calls to free Luigi that they wanted to have a phalanx of people, a motorcade with its own emergency service team with long guns in terms of a counter-assault team, motorcycles to clear the route so that nobody tried to free Luigi. That's what you're seeing in one regard.

What you're seeing in another regard is the other piece of this, which is they wanted to demonstrate that this person is in custody, is in the custody of the New York City Police Department, the FBI's violent crime task force with the FBI and NYPD together, and that he is being brought to justice. But those two factors combine for the scene we saw here.

The fact that the mayor, a former police captain, was present, I think was key because he is also sending a message to New Yorkers that this kind of thing won't be tolerated and there will be justice.

SANCHEZ: Yes, it was interesting to see that as the mayor was there shortly after, the DA Alvin Bragg had a press conference announcing that one of the mayor's top aides was facing charges in a completely separate investigation. Nevertheless, quite the split screen for the New York mayor's office.

John, if you could talk to us about the significance of this evidence that we'd not seen before that was included in the federal complaint in which Mangione was writing as of August, talking about insurance being his target. It obviously speaks to a motive, a frame of mind and it might cut into a potential insanity defense, no?

MILLER: Well, it might, or it might work certainly to his detriment. Murder is generally not a federal charge. Generally, that's a state charge, and he's charged with murder by state prosecutors, but this is interesting. In the three-page, what they call claim of responsibility that was allegedly found on his person in his handwriting, it's addressed at the top of the page, to the feds, which means he assumed that at some point he would be tracked down, identified, captured and probably by the FBI. So that wasn't a surprise to him.

It certainly came as a surprise to state prosecutors, who only learned last night that the FBI would be taking their prisoner into custody as a state Supreme Court justice was waiting in a courtroom to arraign him. But the new evidence that is cited in the complaint talks about his description in his own handwriting, not in the claim of responsibility note, but in a separate spiral notebook.

Now, Boris and Brianna, he refers to this spiral notebook in the claim of responsibility, allegedly, by saying the plans are in the spiral notebook, and you can look there for that. Don't try to get into my electronics because they're pretty locked down. So he basically directs them to this notebook.

But he talks about his intent, as Shimon told us, to whack the CEO of one of the insurance companies at its investor conference, saying that one and a half months, this investor conference is a true windfall, and most importantly, the message becomes self-evident.

You would interpret that to say it's the investors conference. The conference is the very symbol of how the top health insurance provider company in the United States, the fifth largest company at the time in America behind Apple, Google and Wal-Mart is their meeting with their investors, talking about how much money they're making, and that killing him at what they describe in this note as the bean counters conference has its own symbolism, what does he say, because the message becomes self-evident. He also talks about the details finally coming together. I'm glad, in a way. I procrastinated. Because it allowed me to learn more about that company, the target is insurance, because it checks every box. What he's saying there is his larger problem, you could interpret that as meaning, is with the health care industry in general. But the insurance company is where all the costs and where the consumer may get shorted, where it all comes together. So in this complaint, we learned a lot.

KEILAR: John, I'm so sorry to interrupt you.

MILLER: It's okay.

KEILAR: We need to go to Shimon, because he does have some new details there at the federal courthouse. Shimon?

[15:15:02]

PROKUPECZ: So we heard, as I said during my last live shot, that we're waiting to hear from Karen Agnifilom, Mangione's attorney. And she herself, Karen, said that she was seeking clarity. She was talking to the judge. And I'm not quoting here, but - so in essence, what she was saying to the judge was that she was kind of surprised by this today. And that - hold on, I'm sorry, I'm just losing - let me go back.

She says she's seeking clarity about the situation between the federal district and the state case. And that she says she was prepared to go in arraignment on the state charges today in state court. And according to our producer in there, she's suggested, Karen Agnifilo suggested, that Bragg's office, this is the district attorney of Manhattan who brought those state charges, that he may have not known that there were federal charges being brought against Mangione.

You know, we've been speaking all morning about just how unprecedented all of this has been. We all were gathered outside the state court, the media, because we were expecting that Mangione would appear in state court. And then at the last minute, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office here announcing that they were taking custody of Mangione.

And now we're hearing from his attorney, Mangione's attorney, that she's seeking clarity about that. What happened here, perhaps completely irrelevant, but we can already see her forming some kind of defense. You know, she's going to perhaps try to argue here.

I'm just trying to see one other thing here. She's also saying that Bragg, the Manhattan DA, didn't mention federal charges during his press conference. That's true. I was there. And so she wants clarity about where there are one or two investigations.

And so that is the update. And last we heard that Mangione, he is still in court. The judge has left the bench. It's unclear why. And that Mangione at this moment is standing at - his attorneys and explaining things for him.

And so now we are being told that the proceedings are over. Our reporter inside, Kara Scannell, is saying that everyone is walking out of the courtroom. Mangione is leaving the courtroom and that his ankles were shackled. And so now he has left the courtroom. The proceedings are over.

We finally heard something from his attorney. We hope to hear more from her as she leaves here. It'll be really the first time, I mean, that we will hear from her any significance. So the proceedings are now over. We wait to hear where Mangione will be housed, where he will be jailed as he awaits trial. They were not seeking bail in this case. Certainly the defense agreed it seems that that would not be appropriate in this case, so at this point, they were not seeking bail.

So he will be held in a federal jail, most likely in Brooklyn, which is known as the MDC. Interestingly enough, that is where P. Diddy is. We know that that is where other high-profile cases. We know many different defendants who have been there.

So it is likely that is where Mangione will be headed towards after here to Brooklyn to the federal jail there as he awaits this trial.

SANCHEZ: Shimon, please stand by.

The top lines coming from this first federal court appearance by Luigi Mangione being that he acknowledged to the magistrate judge that he understands what he's accused of, his attorneys expressing some surprise at the federal charges that he's facing. We are set to hear from his attorneys in just moments. And also significantly that they're not seeking bail for him, something that was unlikely to be granted to begin with.

KEILAR: Yes, it seemed like it might be a perfunctory request that they would proceed with, but in the end, they did not.

We are going to take a quick break. We'll be right back with more analysis on this court appearance of Luigi Mangione that has just concluded. We'll be right back.

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[15:23:20]

KEILAR: We are following our breaking news here. The first federal court appearance for healthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione has just concluded.

SANCHEZ: Back with us now, John Miller is CNN's Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst and Misty Marris is a trial and defense attorney.

Before we pick up where Shimon just left off a moment ago, I do want to point out we're anticipating that Mangione's attorneys will be walking out of the courthouse shortly and speaking to the press. We saw a bouquet of microphones stationed out there.

KEILAR: Not speaking, we just learned. SANCHEZ: They're actually not speaking to the press.

KEILAR: Yes.

SANCHEZ: We just literally just learned that as I said that.

KEILAR: In our ears.

SANCHEZ: Great, so that bouquet of microphones is essentially useless. Let's collect those and move on, and get to Misty and John.

Misty, I wonder what you make of what Karen Agnifilo, Mangione's attorney, said talking about seeking clarity and specifically the question of her alluding to potential double jeopardy facing these federal charges along with the state charges for her client.

MARRIS: I guess we won't be hearing from her but absolutely, Boris, that is where this is going. She - the legal team is teeing this up to argue that these federal charges violate a criminal defendant's constitutional right of double jeopardy. Meaning that you can't be charged with the same crime twice.

Now, there's a Supreme Court case right on point, a criminal defendant can be charged with a state crime and a federal crime so long as that individual violated a state statute and a federal statute. So that's what we have here. This is proceeding on two different legal theories. On the federal level, it relates to this interstate transit stalking resulting in murder.

[15:25:05]

That crossing of the state lines is the avenue the federal government is taking in the criminal complaint to bring this into the federal court system. The state, obviously, relating to those terrorism in - furtherance of terrorism charges. But, that's not going to stop the defense team from raising the argument and trying to get rid of, pre- trial, the federal charges and saying - and probing, as we heard about in the courtroom, as to the genesis of these federal charges, are there concurrent investigations that are going on. So, that's where this is going.

Another thing I think to point out, there had always been a question of whether or not there would be a competency argument. Competency means does a defendant understand the charges against them and is able to participate in their own defense. We see now, in the courtroom, that Mangione was asked, does he understand the charges, he said yes.

So, it doesn't appear that that issue is going to be raised. But, we can expect a real fight on that double jeopardy component.

KEILAR: Yes, we'll be watching for that. Misty, stand by for us.

Let's go to Kara Scannell.

Kara, you are now out of court as the day has concluded for Luigi Mangione. Tell us what you saw during the proceedings. KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was a court - a packed courtroom. Mangione was led into the courtroom by two U.S. Marshals. He was changed from that orange jumpsuit into street clothes, a white button-down shirt, a three quarter zip navy over shirt, and khaki pants. He was shackled at the ankles and his hands were clasped in front of him but not shackled.

So, he entered, he sat down, he was quiet throughout the proceeding, didn't make many facial expressions. He did acknowledge he understood his rights when the judge read them to him. He said he understood the charges against him. All times, just answering very briefly, yes, he consulted with his attorneys and at some point, he was flipping through the complaint, reading the murder, the stalking charges that were levied against him.

Now, the hearing was very brief, the judge just going through the process. But the big moment there was his attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, saying that in her 30 years as a prosecutor and a defense lawyer practicing in New York, she had never seen a situation play out like this. In fact, she said she was told at 2 PM today for his arraignment on state charges and then they were shocked when they turned around and found that there were federal charges and this first presentment today in court.

Now, the judge set a preliminary hearing for the middle of January. That is presuming that Mangione is not indicted before then on these federal charges. Today's charges were a complaint. The next step will be that indictment on federal charges.

You know, she did note that one of these charges is - has the possibility of the death penalty. The prosecutors did not say whether they were going to seek that in this case. They didn't even respond to her allegations about how highly unusual this was, saying that that will be discussed at a future court hearing when it is more appropriate. The judge acknowledging that they didn't really have to address it today.

We are waiting now for his attorneys to exit court. Mangione was taken back into custody. He will be detained for now. They did not seek bail, but we are waiting for the lawyers to step out. They're not expected to speak to the cameras at least at this point, but Mangione for now in federal custody. It's unclear when he will be in state court to respond to those 11 count indictment on those state charges. Brianna, Boris?

KEILAR: All right. Kara, thank you so much for that. Let's go to John Miller now.

John, you know where Mangione is going to be held?

MILLER: Yes, he's going to the Metropolitan Detention Center, which is the only federal jail in New York City that's operating, and that's in Brooklyn. So he will be in the same building as P. Diddy.

SANCHEZ: John, thank you so much for that update. We're going to take a quick break and follow the latest in this story and many more. CNN NEW CENTRAL continues in just a few minutes.

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