NEW YORK — Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty in a Manhattan courtroom Friday to stalking and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a dramatic turning point in the high-profile prosecution over the executive’s predawn murder outside a Midtown hotel in December 2024.

In a stunning courtroom admission before Thompson’s tearful widow, Paulette Thompson, and various family members, Mangione, 28, disclosed new details of his plot to target the healthcare executive.

“I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan, and he died,” Mangione said. “I understood that my actions would place him in fear of death or serious bodily injury.”

Mangione said he was able to learn details about the time and location of the event Thompson was attending at the Hilton hotel on West 54th Street, which weren’t public, by contacting the company and pretending to be an investor at a major company.

“After years of enduring severe pain from a broken back, navigating the obstacles of the health insurance system and witnessing similar experiences of countless others, I learned that UnitedHealthcare would be holding its annual investor conference in New York City,” Mangione told Manhattan Federal Court Judge Margaret Garnett, reading matter-of-factly from a written statement.

The Maryland man, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, said that he traveled to New York and emailed the company in November 2024, weeks before the conference.

“Unlike my previous interactions with insurers, I received an immediate response within an hour,” he said.

Mangione said he used a 3-D printer to make a ghost gun and equipped it with a silencer and magazine, admitting that on Dec. 4, 2024, he used it to kill the executive, an Iowa native and father to two teen boys.

The plea throws a wrench in Mangione’s parallel state prosecution scheduled for trial next month. Within an hour of the conference ending, his legal team filed a motion asking State Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro to dismiss second-degree murder and other charges on double jeopardy grounds. Their joint request with prosecutors for Friday’s last-minute hearing led to intense speculation this week that a plea was incoming.

“Mr. Mangione has accepted full responsibility,” Mangione’s lead attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said outside court. “It was a single tragic event, yet he is being prosecuted twice for the same conduct.”

While federal prosecutors intend to secure a term of life behind bars, Mangione’s eleventh-hour plea could reduce his overall exposure if he successfully uses it to get the state case thrown out. A second conviction in the state case could result in a consecutive life sentence, all but ensuring he would die in prison.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald told reporters that the feds didn’t offer up any deal and had no intention of seeking a lenient term in exchange for Mangione taking responsibility.

“There are no accommodations or concessions,” McDonald said. “We are free to seek the maximum penalty under the law.”

Garnett, who scheduled sentencing for Dec. 18, advised Mangione on Friday that he would not be permitted to revoke his plea if he was unhappy with the term imposed, 85% of which she said he was certain to serve, given there’s no parole in the federal system.

The judge also notified him of the possibility of consecutive sentences if the state case goes ahead and he’s found guilty. Mangione affirmed that he understood.

A spokesman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said local prosecutors would press forward and signaled Garnett’s sentence may inform their next moves.

“The Manhattan D.A.’s Office has been tirelessly preparing to pursue a trial conviction in New York State Supreme Court for the alleged cold-blooded murder of Brian Thompson. We are encouraged that Mr. Thompson’s family received a measure of accountability today,” Doug Cohen said. “While federal sentencing is pending, we are prepared to litigate the defense motions.”

Members of Thompson’s family, who attended Friday’s hearing, in a statement said the plea brought a measure of closure.

“While nothing will ease the pain of losing him, we are grateful that the federal justice system has held the person responsible for this heinous act accountable,” the statement read. “Now we look to the court to ensure that sentencing reflects the severity of this crime. We remain mindful that additional proceedings in New York and Pennsylvania are still to come, and we will continue to seek the justice Brian deserves.”

Wearing beige prison garb, Mangione was brought into the courtroom shackled at the ankles at around 11:10 a.m. Friday, stopping for a moment to scan faces in the gallery before taking his seat at the defense table.

In contrast to his usually upbeat courtroom demeanor, Mangione appeared tired. He indicated to the judge at one point that he’d recently had trouble sleeping, taking a sleeping pill two days ago, which he affirmed had not affected his judgment in deciding to plead out.

The killing of Thompson, 50, touched off a national debate about affordability in the U.S. health insurance industry, with dozens of members of the public flocking to his hearings in support of his defense. Several of his most ardent supporters who attended Friday’s hearing were seen weeping in the courtroom benches.

Abril Rios, 27, one of the self-described “Mangionistas,” said she was not shocked by the plea, and that it did not change her stance.

“I’ve always said that I support him either way, and I’ve always felt that this could be on the table,” Rios said. “I see what happened on December 4 as an act of revolutionary protest.”

The feds’ case alleged that Mangione had stalked the executive for weeks and laid out plans to kill him in a manifesto that lamented greed in the health insurance industry at the expense of everyday Americans’ well-being.

Shell casings recovered at the scene bore the words “delay,” “deny,” and “defend,” apparently in reference to health insurers’ denying claims to maximize profits. The gunman fled the scene, and Mangione was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, following a nationwide manhunt that gripped the nation.

Outside the courthouse, New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said there was nothing heroic about Mangione’s action in the eyes of law enforcement.

“To those who idolize Luigi Mangione, I say this. Violence is not a cause, murder is not a message, and a killer is certainly not a hero,” Tisch said

Mangione faces lower level charges in the Keystone State accusing him of presenting a fake ID to cops, which bore the same name as an ID he used to check into an Upper West Side hostel 10 days before Thompson’s killing, according to authorities.

In court Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Dominic Gentile detailed extensive evidence to Garnett that prosecutors had been prepared to present at the federal trial, which was scheduled to begin in January.

Mangione, who had no criminal record before his arrest for the 2024 incident, pleaded guilty Friday to interstate stalking resulting in Thompson’s killing and stalking and surveilling Thompson with interstate facilities.

He was not charged with murdering Thompson in the federal case, with Garnett earlier this year dismissing the top count of murder through the use of a firearm, which is death penalty-eligible, as the other charges in the indictment did not sufficiently support it.

The Ivy League computer science graduate is charged with Thompson’s murder under New York State law in the state case being tried by Bragg’s office, which first filed charges in relation to the Midtown killing. Judge Carro, presiding over that case, in February said local prosecutors had done the heavy lifting in the dueling cases. That trial, now potentially in limbo, is scheduled to begin with jury selection on Sept. 8.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty.

The young man has personally decried the two prosecutions, yelling out to courtroom spectators at a state court hearing earlier this year: “It’s the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition.”

Under New York law, a person cannot be tried twice for conduct originating from the same crime, barring limited exceptions, including the separate charges featuring distinct elements intended to address very different types of “harm or evil.”

Mangione has been incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since his 2024 arrest.

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