Luigi Mangione faces a judge in Manhattan courtroom, will be held in federal detention

The 26-year-old Ivy league graduate accused of the Midtown killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson is now in federal custody and could face the death penalty.

Federal authorities charged Luigi Mangione Thursday with murder, firearm and stalking charges. He did not ask for bail to be set at his first brief appearance in a lower Manhattan courtroom and will remain in federal detention while he awaits trial.

Mangione arrived in Manhattan Thursday after waiving extradition in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested after a five day search. Mangione’s attorney and federal prosecutors did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mangione, 26, already faces murder and terrorism charges in Manhattan state court, which could land him in prison for the rest of his life.

A 10-page criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday by the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York provides the clearest picture yet into a case that has captured international attention. It features screenshots authorities say are of the shooter’s movements by foot, bike and taxi through New York City, as well as excerpts from a letter and a notebook police say they found after arresting Mangione.

Prosecutors say Mangione arrived by bus in Manhattan on Nov. 24 and checked into an Upper West Side hostel using a fake ID with the name Mark Rosario. For the next week and a half, the complaint alleges, Mangione consistently kept a mask on, even while inside the hostel, except when asked to remove it briefly while checking in. Security footage of that moment was used to broadcast what police said was their suspect’s face during the search, and ultimately led to Mangione's arrest at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Around 5:30 a.m. on Dec. 4, according to the complaint, Mangione biked to the Midtown hotel where Thompson planned to attend an annual investor conference and waited outside for about an hour. Then he approached Thompson, shot him from behind with an untraceable ghost gun and fled, prosecutors allege. Thompson was pronounced dead shortly afterward.

FBI special agent Gary Cobb said law enforcement gathered and reviewed hundreds of hours of surveillance footage to track the shooter’s movements before and after Thompson’s killing. The complaint includes snapshots of the alleged shooter biking through Central Park after the shooting. Another image shows the suspect riding in the back of a taxi toward the George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal, wearing a black hoodie and a blue surgical mask.

The complaint cites a letter addressed “To the Feds,” in which Mangione allegedly says he “wasn’t working with anyone” and that the scheme was “all self-funded.”

“This was fairly trivial. Some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience,” the letter states, according to the criminal complaint.

Cobb said he believes “CAD” stands for “computer-aided design.”

Federal officials also cited a notebook recovered after Mangione’s arrest, where he allegedly wrote that “the target is insurance” because “it checks every box.” About six weeks before the investor conference, the complaint states, he wrote about his plans to “wack” the CEO of one of the insurance companies.

“This investor conference is a true windfall … and — most importantly — the message becomes self-evident,” an excerpt quoted in the complaint states.

In state court, Mangione faces charges in Manhattan of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a forged instrument. The state indictment also accuses him of killing Thompson as an act of terrorism.

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said Thursday that state and federal prosecutions can proceed “in parallel manners” and that his office is in touch with federal officials.

Thompson’s killing has stoked a nationwide debate about the United States' health care industry, and the search before he was captured made headlines around the globe. The day after the shooting, police confirmed that they’d recovered shell casings with the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose” written on them. The words resemble the title of a 2010 book about health insurance companies by Jay M. Feinman, “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.”

Mangione, who is from the Baltimore suburbs and was the valedictorian of his private all-boys high school, has become a poster child for many Americans’ pent-up anger at the health insurance industry. Many have praised the shooters’ actions on social media. Roughly a half-dozen protesters gathered outside the Pennsylvania courthouse to show support for Mangione.

At a press conference earlier this week, Bragg and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch both condemned celebrations of Thompson’s killings and said his family deserves to be respected while they grieve.

“ We don't celebrate murders, and we don't lionize the killing of anyone,” Tisch said. “And any attempt to rationalize this is vile, reckless, and offensive to our deeply held principles of justice.”

This story has been updated with more information about the federal indictment.