2020 Engineering graduate Luigi Mangione was indicted in federal court on four charges for his alleged December 2024 murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Thursday.
On April 17, Mangione was indicted in U.S. District Court in New York on two counts of stalking, a firearms offense, and murder through the use of a firearm — the last of which makes him eligible for the death penalty if convicted. The indictment comes after a federal grand jury found probable cause to charge him and suggested that the Department of Justice intends to move rapidly toward a trial.
Following the indictment, Mangione will be assigned a judge to rule on motions and disputes and preside over trials and potential death penalty proceedings.
In December 2024, Mangione was charged with murder as an act of terrorism. In an April 1 press release, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi directed prosecutors to seek the death penalty in the federal case against Mangione.
In the release, Bondi called Thompson’s shooting an “act of political violence” and added that because the act “took place in public with bystanders nearby,” it may have posed a risk to individuals other than Thompson.
“Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson — an innocent man and father of two young children — was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America. After careful consideration, I have directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case as we carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again,” Bondi wrote.
Shortly after Mangione’s arrest, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office indicted him on federal and state charges, including first-degree murder “in furtherance of terrorism,” two counts of second-degree murder — one of which was classified as an act of terrorism — and eight other weapons and forgery offenses.
While at Penn, Mangione was a member of Phi Kappa Psi, a University-affiliated fraternity. He suffered from mental and physical health problems, which he claimed in a social media post were exacerbated by his fraternity’s “hell week” — the final week of intense pledging ahead of initiation.
Mangione posted frequently on Reddit about his difficulty maintaining focus amid exhaustion and brain fog and attributed his decline in academic success to these issues.
“It’s absolutely brutal to have such a life-halting issue,” Mangione wrote of his brain fog in a Reddit post. “The people around you probably won’t understand your symptoms — they certainly don’t for me.”
In 2016, Mangione founded Penn’s Game Research and Development Environment, also known as UPGRADE. The club aimed to “foster creative expression and cultivate career skills for the artists, programmers, and creatives interested in game development in the Penn community” and grew to include over several dozen members.
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