


A New York state judge on Tuesday dismissed the terrorism charges Luigi Mangione faced for the fatal shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Judge Gregory Carro dismissed charges of murder in the first degree in furtherance of an act of terrorism, and murder in the second degree as a crime of terrorism. Mangione is still charged with second-degree murder in the December, 2024 slaying of Thompson in front of a Manhattan hotel.
Carro cited “legally insufficient” evidence in dismissing the two counts. Carro noted, though, that the prosecution “presented legally sufficient evidence of all other counts.”
In dismissing the terrorism-related charges, Carro acknowledged the “unique meaning” of the concept. Prosecutors alleged in a June filing that Mangione sought to intimidate United Health Care employees and “bring about revolutionary change to the healthcare industry.”
Mangione, in his writings prior to the shooting, said he sought to bring attention to “everything wrong with our health system,” and to negatively impact United Health Care financially, authorities noted. Carro, referring prior case law, said equating Mangione’s motives with terrorism risks trivializing the term.
“While the defendant was clearly expressing an animus toward UHC, and the health care industry generally, it does not follow that his goal was to ‘intimidate and coerce a civilian population,’ and indeed, there was no evidence presented of such a goal,” Carro wrote of the terrorism charges.
The judge added that while prosecutors presented sufficient evidence that Mangione killed Thompson “in a premeditated execution,” they have not done enough to show he had “terroristic intent.”
Mangione, 27, is also facing a federal death penalty charge that alleges he stalked Thompson prior to shooting the 50-year-old health insurance executive. In directing federal prosecutors to seek capital punishment in April, Attorney General Pam Bondi called Thompson’s killing a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”
In light of the federal charges, Mangione’s attorneys had also sought to dismiss the entire state case, arguing in a court filing “that testifying in the state case may prejudice him during his federal trial, thus implicating his rights to defend himself and against self-incrimination.”
However, Carro, in calling the motion “premature,” said the concurrent state and federal prosecutions do not violate constitutional protections against double jeopardy due to a lack of a guilty plea and a jury in either case.
“This court is not persuaded that proceeding to trial in the state case first will cause the defendant severe prejudice, and the defendant’s claim that any state trial testimony will prejudice his federal trial is merely speculative,” Carro wrote.
Carro set a pretrial hearing in the state case for Dec. 1. Mangione is due in court in the federal case days later.
The Associated Press contributed.
Updated at 11:36 a.m. EDT