Luigi Mangione Supporters Remain Steadfast Ahead of UnitedHealthcare CEO Murder Trial

Luigi Mangione faced a hearing on Friday as supporters planned a rally outside a Manhattan courthouse. Some Americans have found a hero in the man accused of vigilante murder.

Even when he was just a wanted man smiling in a surveillance picture, Luigi Mangione elicited a fervent response from some Americans. Now identified and charged in the brazen fatal shooting of a health care executive, his influence has persisted, even from behind bars.

Supporters, some of whom have championed his anti-insurance-industry message, have deluged him with correspondence in the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. They have sent Mr. Mangione, 26, gifts and at least $500,000 for his defense fund. His lawyers created a website complete with a personal statement from the man himself and instructions on how to contact him.

“I am overwhelmed by — and grateful for — everyone who has written me to share their stories and express their support,” Mr. Mangione’s message said, adding, “mail has flooded M.D.C. from across the country, and around the globe.”

The positive response has horrified many Americans who were shocked by the brutality of the crime of which Mr. Mangione is accused: assassinating Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, in Manhattan. But in the nearly three months since the shooting, the groundswell of interest and support has been sustained.

A rally was organized outside the Lower Manhattan courthouse where a hearing was to be held in his case Friday afternoon, with fliers trumpeting support “for people harmed & killed by insurance industry greed.”

In a 15th-floor hallway, about 100 young women lined benches and sat on the floor. Some wore red sweaters with white-collared shirts, an apparent homage to Mr. Mangione’s outfit during his last court appearance.

Among the crowd was Chelsea Elizabeth Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst whose leak of classified documents detailing U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan earned her a 35-year prison sentence that was later commuted.

As Mr. Mangione’s lawyers walked onto the floor, the crowd erupted in cheers and applause.

Mr. Mangione has inspired documentaries about his life and remains a topic of interest on social media. The GiveSendGo fund-raising page for his defense has reeled in donations and a steady stream of supportive notes.

Launched Feb. 14, the website — which includes methods for sending pictures — is the latest development in a story that has gripped the nation from the moment Mr. Thompson was gunned down outside an investors’ meeting at a Midtown hotel on Dec. 4. Mr. Mangione’s lawyers said in a statement that they had created it as a way to provide “answers to frequently asked questions, accurate information about his cases, and dispel misinformation,” they wrote.

The website has information on Mr. Mangione’s criminal cases, including the times and dates of hearings. But its muted black-and-white layout appears to be an attempt by the lawyers to de-emphasize the frenzy that has surrounded their client, said Diana Rickard, a professor who teaches criminal justice at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

The fact that the site has no picture of Mr. Mangione — who has drawn comparisons to Hollywood heartthrobs — is telling, she said.

“They are playing down the sensationalism and the sensation of him, which was very visual, but obviously they’re capitalizing on it,” Professor Rickard said, adding that his defense team appeared to be saying, “This is a professional, not a sensational website.”

The site, however, would not exist “without the sensation,” she added.

As the public attention swirls around Mr. Mangione, the legal cases against him grind ahead.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office has charged Mr. Mangione with first-degree murder, a charge that brands him as a terrorist, as well as weapons charges and two variations of second-degree murder. In addition to that 11-count indictment, he is facing federal charges, one of which carries the possibility of the death penalty, as well as state charges in Pennsylvania.

Mr. Mangione has pleaded not guilty in all of the cases. His lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, has described her client as “overcharged.”

During the hearing on Friday, Mr. Mangione sat at a table with his lawyers, chained and wearing a bulletproof vest. Dressed in a dark green sweater with a white-collared shirt and white pants, he appeared engaged, leaning forward to look at an assistant district attorney as he spoke.

The proceedings were accompanied by chants from the protest outside. Inside, Ms. Friedman Agnifilo raised several issues to the court, including that Mr. Mangione’s detention at a federal jail while his state case proceeded had created difficulties for the defense team. She also said that a police search in Pennsylvania was improper. “Our client’s constitutional rights were violated,” she said.

Daniel Medwed, a professor of law and criminal justice at Northeastern University, said that the phenomenon around Mr. Mangione’s case was unusual. Typically, public attention is focused on the victim of a crime and not the person charged in the killing, he said. However, the New York case has seemingly “struck a chord in the national psyche,” he said.

“The outpouring of support is not necessarily based on questions about the investigation or about his potential guilt,” Professor Medwed said. “It’s an outpouring of support for a form of vigilante justice.”

UnitedHealthcare has long been the target of fury for denying claims, and has faced scrutiny for using algorithms to refuse coverage. The company is one of the nation’s largest health insurers and covers more than 50 million people.

The Justice Department has begun an investigation into the company, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. The probe is a civil fraud investigation examining UnitedHealthcare’s practice of recording diagnoses that trigger extra payments to its Medicare Advantage plan, the publication said.

Mr. Thompson’s killing was seen as a blow against America’s profit-driven health care system by Mr. Mangione’s supporters. Prosecutors have said that the killing was intended to send a message.

The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, called it “a frightening, well-planned, targeted murder that was intended to cause shock and attention and intimidation.”

The story unfolded dramatically beginning around 6:45 a.m. on a Wednesday morning.

Surveillance footage showed a gunman walking up behind Mr. Thompson outside a Hilton hotel in Midtown, lifting a handgun fitted with a suppressor and shooting him several times. Mr. Thompson can be seen scrambling behind a wall, before the gunman shoots him again and flees across the street. Mr. Thompson was shot once in the back and once in the leg.

Mr. Thompson, 50, was a father of two, whom relatives described as a “loving husband, son, brother and friend.”

The authorities said it was Mr. Mangione who waited outside the hotel that morning for nearly an hour until Mr. Thompson arrived for a UnitedHealthcare investors’ day gathering. According to the police, Mr. Mangione immediately left New York — scattering his belongings across the city as he escaped.

While authorities immediately began a manhunt, canvassing the city and releasing images of the person they sought, the killing also released a tide of online frustration toward the health insurance industry.

Authorities said that shell casings and a bullet at the scene had the words “deny,” “depose” and “delay” written on them — likely references to health insurers and how they respond to claims.

When Mr. Mangione was arrested five days later in Altoona, Pa., authorities said he had a handwritten manifesto with him that decried the American health care system and its wealthy executives.

To some Americans, the attack galvanized their anger. An anonymous donation for $1,300 made on Mr. Mangione’s fund-raising page two months ago carried a message that said it was “coincidentally the same amount I was charged for my 100% covered medical procedure.”

The top donor, who contributed $11,000, said he was particularly concerned about the chance of Mr. Mangione facing the death penalty, following an executive order signed by President Trump. The anonymous donor wrote that capital punishment “should never be politicized.”

After the hearing, Ms. Friedman Agnifilo went outside the courthouse, where dozens of Mr. Mangione’s supporters, many wearing green, chanted, “Who’s the real terrorist? UHC.”

Ms. Friedman Agnifilo told the demonstrators: “Luigi wanted to thank his supporters for being here.”

Samiah Akhtar, a public-school teacher, said she had taken the day off to support Mr. Mangione.

“He’s getting an unfair trial,” Ms. Akhtar, 29, said, adding, “If you are labeling him as a terrorist, why not label school shooters and other mass shootings that happen in the U.S.?”

Diana Umana said she was there because “there’s an innocent young man who’s been accused of a heinous crime, and I feel like it’s part of my duty to ensure that things go how they’re supposed to.”

Ms. Umana, 28, arrived at the courthouse at 9:30 a.m., hours after dozens of Mr. Mangione’s supporters began lining up in hopes of securing a seat in the courtroom.

Mr. Mangione’s supporter base may have consolidated and intensified in recent months, said Professor Rickard, whose research has focused on true crime. The obsession was fostered by how the killing and the escape were caught on video, she said.

“We are a sophisticated culture now with storytelling, and we don’t have clean good guys and clean bad guys,” she said. Those who support Mr. Mangione find something “exciting about him as a vigilante,” she said.

“It signifies a hunger for heroes and excitement and also just a distortion of what is heroic,” she said, adding: “I see it as disturbing."

As Mr. Mangione left the courtroom on Friday, he looked directly at supporters who were seated on the backbenches. At least one woman smiled back.

Eryn Davis and Jefferson Siegel contributed reporting.