Luigi Mangione Lone Wolf

Dual Prosecutions for the UnitedHealthcare CEO Murder

By: Matthew Russell Lee

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

On Luigi Mangione who would go first, the City or the Feds? The letter Mangione was arrested with in the Altoona McDonalds was addressed the "the Feds." But Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg struck first. To announce the indictment, on terrorism charges no less, he invited the press to a conference on December 17. Kurt Wheelock RSVP-ed and went.

It was up to the 8th floor, in the building across Hogan Place from 100 Centre Street. Then down a long hallway to the training room. Cameras were on the riser, and a few seats remained. Kurt took one and prepared to live-tweet, as he would the whole case. Or cases.

After a three-minute warning, Alvin Bragg came out. With him was Jessica Tisch, the new NYPD Commissioner after Eric Adams' last one quit, with indictments in the air. Even the fill-in Tom Donlon had his house raised.

Tisch was the daughter of a rich real estate family. Not unlike Mangione in that. But she hated him and what he stood for. The feeling might be mutual.

Tisch held up a copy of a tabloid, about the death threats being made on other CEOs. Didn't Mangione's family own country clubs and nursing homes? What explained Luigi's reversal of course? How early had he started chaffing?

December 23, 2024:

The press line in the hallway of the 100 Centre Street courthouse began at 8 am on December 23 for the arraignment of Luigi Mangione. But members of the public, mostly young women many wearing COVID masks, began outside at 4:30 am.

Inner City Press was there, as it had been for the Federal presentment on December 19. Today, with more time to organize - there had been a "Free Luigi" poster complete with QR code - there were more people.

I think he should get a fair trial, a woman from New Jersey said from behind her mask.
I'm here because of the cost of health insurance, said another.
He's hot, someone said.

Over the weekend, a woman had been burned to death after being set on in fire on a subway train in Coney Island. A migrant from Guatemala had been arrested. Inner City Press might catch his arraignment over in Brooklyn. Or would that case, too, be Federalized? Surely that defendant would have no supporters.

Inner City Press had reported on defendants being sentenced to 20 years or more in prison, for lesser crimes than murder, with no one else in the courtroom gallery. This assassination on video had struck a nerve, more so after the Crime Stoppers photos were released. It was a tale of comparative crimes, of dual prosecutions. This is the first book of a series. Lone Wolf.