Adulation and punishment: why murder accused Luigi Mangione has so many fans
One of the most high-profile trials of recent times has begun in New York. Luigi Mangione, 26, is accused of murdering Brian Thompson, a top manager of the insurance company UnitedHealth. The case has captured the attention of all of America, and the defendant has become a national hero to many. Izvestia looked intowhy this happened and whether the scenario can be repeated in the future.
Death in Manhattan
In the early morning hours of December 4, Brian Thompson, one of the top managers of UnitedHealth Group, the largest insurance company in the United States, was killed at the entrance to the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan. Five days later, the likely perpetrator of the crime, Luigi Mangione, was apprehended in Pennsylvania. He was charged with document forgery, possession of an unlicensed weapon (the gun, as it later turned out, was partially made on a 3D printer using purchased parts), and second-degree murder.
The scene of the murder of Brian Thompson, a top executive at UnitedHealth Group, outside the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan.
The suspect's attorney entered a not guilty plea for his client. Mangione was soon extradited to New York. The state prosecutor's office changed the count to first-degree murder, a crime committed for terrorist purposes. This harshness was due to the widespread public outcry the murder had generated. It is noteworthy that Mangione is being held in the same Brooklyn prison as the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Sam Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years for fraud, and Sean P.Diddy Combs, who is accused of pedophilia.
Luigi Mangione in the courtroom
Meanwhile, a real campaign in support of Mangione was launched on the Web. The hashtag FreeLuigi became popular, which was used to sign posts demanding that he be found not guilty, and Luigi himself was proclaimed a fighter against social injustice. Dozens of protesters gathered outside courthouses in Hollidaysburg and New York City. On the streets of the Big Apple, posters with pictures of top executives from other insurance companies could be found with opaque hints that they deserved the same fate as Thompson.
Victim or predator?
The victim himself gained some notoriety a few years before his death. Thompson was the centerpiece of a scandal involving the introduction of artificial intelligence technology into the work of UnitedHealth. Within the framework of this project, AI-algorithms instead of people made decisions on certain insurance payments. It soon became clear that the number of denials, already high, doubled during this time. Thompson, however, was at the helm of the initiative. A class action lawsuit was filed against the company, alleging that management knew about the "errors" of the implemented system and deliberately ignored them. During this time, UnitedHealth showed a stable revenue growth dynamics: from $226 billion in 2021 to $305 billion in 2024 (by the end of the third quarter).
However, this Thompson case is only part of the overall, rather bleak picture. Against the background of record profits of companies in the medical industry, the cost of insurance continues to rise at a rate outpacing inflation. One in 12 U.S. citizens owes health care debts to insurance companies (collectively, that's more than $220 billion), and those debts are the leading cause of bankruptcy for individuals in the United States. Another reason for hatred is the unprecedentedly high level of denials of payments by insurers, in the case of UnitedHealth sometimes reaching a third of the total number of claims.
The problem of health insurance in the United States is huge and causes irritation among citizens, emphasizes Americanist Kirill Benediktov.
- For many decades it has been practically impossible to be treated without insurance. Otherwise, you have to be really incredibly rich. Insurance companies use this circumstance to their advantage. As for UnitedHealth, it denied almost 30% of reimbursements. In America as a whole, statistics show that every American adult has had a problem with an insurance company at least once in a year. Hence the treatment of companies as parasites. The words written on the casings found (deny, defend, depose - "deny, defend, depose." - Ed.) are not accidental. This is a reference to the book, which became a bestseller after the murder of Thompson and told about how the insurance business works in the United States (delay, deny, defend - "delay, deny, defend. - Ed.). And, by the way, they immediately led investigators to the motives of the crime committed," the expert points out.
Rally outside the courthouse in support of Luigi Mangione
According to The Hill poll, 41% of Americans consider Thompson's murder acceptable. Emerson College poll has 38% in this category. And young people are particularly likely to hold this opinion.
According to prosecutors, Mangione had been plotting the murder for three months. A "manifesto" found on him allegedly contains direct instructions that the elimination of a top UnitedHealth Care executive should send a message. "The message becomes self-evident," he allegedly wrote in the document.
Unpredictable consequences
It is the topicality of the issue that has made Mangione's case so popular and dangerous at the same time. And it is for that reason that the prosecution reclassified it as first-degree murder. Since 2008, New York State has had a statutory ban on the death penalty. The maximum penalty for the incriminated crimes of the defendant - life imprisonment without the right to review the sentence.
According to the American press, the leaders of the U.S. health insurance industry in this regard appealed to the U.S. Department of Justice with a demand to achieve punishment for Manjone. After all, his actions could serve as an example for others. And there is indeed such a possibility, admits Kirill Benediktov.
- Surely such crimes will be repeated. Mangione will be tried by a jury, and who knows, maybe among them will be those who have had their own negative experience with insurance companies. This circumstance may well influence the verdict. And given the media popularity of the defendant, it is quite possible that there will be those who will want to become his followers.
The Manjone case has every chance of becoming political in the near future, said Vladimir Vasilyev, chief researcher at the Institute of the United States and Canada.
- The U.S. media are already saying that Thompson has "thousands of ruined lives" on his conscience because of the mass refusals to pay. And this practice has indeed been very widespread over the past decade, especially intensified by the results of the pandemic. Hence the reputation as a "social thug" or "people's vigilante" that Mangione is developing. The Democrats, in light of this case, are trying to reconfigure society against the "power of billionaires," which they claim Trump is trying to impose in the United States, and talk about the need for social justice, even by such methods," Vasiliev notes.
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