Luigi Mangione, the suspect named in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has hired prominent attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo to represent him.
A spokesperson for Friedman Agnifilo’s firm, Agnifilo Intrater LLP, confirmed to PEOPLE that the former Manhattan chief assistant district attorney was retained to represent Mangione, 26, in New York — where he faces a murder charge in the Dec. 4 killing of Thompson.
Friedman Agnifilo, who has three decades of criminal justice experience and held the role of Manhattan chief assistant district attorney from 2014 to 2021, will “not be making any statements at this time,” the spokesperson said.
Before her time in private practice and before her years in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, Friedman Agnifilo worked as general counsel on criminal justice policy for New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s office from 2006 to 2010, per her firm. A longtime New York prosecutor told CNN that Mangione’s new attorney has “as much experience as any human being, especially in the state court” and “knows every corridor, every judge, every clerk in the courthouse.”
As multiple outlets including Vanity Fair, The New York Post and The Daily Beast have since reported, Friedman Agnifilo is married to attorney Marc Agnifilio, who is involved in another high-profile case related to Sean “Diddy” Combs.
PA Department of Corrections
Marc Agnifilio is representing the Bad Boy mogul, who in September was charged with sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. At the time of Combs’ charges in Manhattan Federal Court, the attorney told PEOPLE that his client was “an innocent man with nothing to hide.”
The music producer will remain in jail until his May 2025 trial, after voluntarily withdrawing his latest bail appeal, per court documents obtained by PEOPLE. His indictment primarily centers around “freak offs,” which authorities alleged to be sex performances involving women who were forced or coerced into participating. Combs is currently jailed at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center.
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Mangione — the alleged UnitedHealthcare gunman — was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa., on Monday, Dec. 9, following a days-long manhunt. He is currently being held at the State Correctional Institution at Huntingdon in the state.
Authorities allege that the Ivy League graduate was the masked shooter who killed Thompson earlier this month outside the New York Hilton Midtown in Manhattan, before fleeing the scene on a bike and leaving the city.
Police have since said that they discovered Mangione with a ghost gun, a suppressor, fake IDs and a manifesto allegedly describing those in the health insurance industry as “parasites.”
He is charged with second-degree murder in New York, as well as weapons and forgery charges in Pennsylvania.
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