(Bloomberg) -- Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the fatal Midtown Manhattan shooting of a top UnitedHealth Group Inc. executive, could return to New York to face murder charges as soon as Thursday.
Mangione, 26, is scheduled to tell a judge in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, whether he’ll continue to fight extradition to New York, where he was indicted Tuesday on murder and weapons charges over the Dec. 4 death of Brian Thompson. While Mangione had previously said he would fight the transfer, he was poised to agree to be sent to New York, a person familiar with the matter said earlier this week.
If Mangione drops his opposition, New York authorities could deliver him to a downtown Manhattan courtroom as early as Thursday afternoon to enter a plea. He was indicted Tuesday on 11 counts, including a charge of first-degree murder that prosecutors said was because the alleged crime was an act of terror. If convicted, he could serve life in prison.
Thompson, the 50-year-old chief executive officer of UnitedHealth’s insurance division, was shot in the back and leg the morning of Dec. 4 outside of the New York Hilton Midtown. Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, five days later following a furious manhunt.
Since the shooting, Mangione has emerged as a sort of antihero to Americans who detest health insurers. Shell casings and a bullet found at the scene had the words “Deny,” “Depose,” and “Delay,” prosecutors said. When police arrested him, Mangione was carrying a manifesto decrying the health-care industry and a notebook discussing the targeted killing of a CEO, authorities said.
At a news conference Tuesday, New York Police Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch denounced the “shocking and appalling celebration of cold-blooded murder.” Mangione, a once-promising software engineer, had suffered from back pain and became alienated from his friends and family in recent months. His mother reported him missing on Nov. 18. Two days before the arrest, she told police that it “might be something that she could see him doing.”
Before the extradition proceedings at 9 a.m. Mangione is scheduled to attend another hearing over Pennsylvania gun and forgery charges filed by Altoona police.
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