Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty on Friday in federal court in New York to stalking charges connected to the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO

Brian Thompson, admitting that he shot the executive outside a Manhattan hotel in December 2024 and resolving one of the two criminal cases against him. Speaking so quickly that the judge asked him to slow down, Mangione told the court: âI shot Mr. Thompson and he died. I knew what I was doing was illegal.â

The plea was entered before a federal judge in New York and marks a significant development in the prosecution of Mangione, who had previously pleaded not guilty to federal murder charges. During the hearing, Mangione acknowledged that he shot Thompson, while his lawyers said he was pleading guilty in connection with the killing of the UnitedHealthcare chief executive.

The guilty plea resolves the federal stalking case arising from Thompson's death, but Mangione still faces a separate state prosecution. He is scheduled to stand trial on New York state murder charges on September 8.

Thompson was shot outside Manhattan hotel

Thompson, 50, was shot and killed on 4 December 2024 outside the New York Hilton Midtown as he walked to UnitedHealth Group's annual investor conference. Prosecutors say Mangione waited in the area for about an hour before ambushing him and then fled through Central Park and across Manhattan before leaving the city.

Mangione was arrested five days later at a McDonald's restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 375 kilometres west of New York City. Police said he initially used a fake identity before identifying himself as Luigi Mangione. Investigators recovered a 3D-printed pistol that prosecutors say matched the weapon used in the shooting, along with a notebook containing references to wanting to âwackâ a health insurance executive.

Death penalty bid was later dropped

The federal case had previously exposed Mangione to the possibility of the death penalty after then-US Attorney General Pam Bondi directed prosecutors to pursue capital punishment, calling the killing âa premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked Americaâ and âan act of political violence.â However, in January 2026, US District Judge Margaret Garnett barred federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty and dismissed the federal murder charge that had enabled them to pursue capital punishment.

State murder trial still ahead

In the parallel state proceedings, Judge Gregory Carro dismissed terrorism charges against Mangione in September 2025, rejecting prosecutors' argument that the killing was âintended to evoke terror.â The ruling removed the most serious state charges but left second-degree murder and other counts in place.

Mangione had argued that being tried in both federal and state courts amounted to unfair duplication. In a court appearance earlier this year, he told Judge Carro, âItâs the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition.â

Investigation tracked Mangione

The investigation began shortly after the shooting, when surveillance footage captured the gunman outside the Hilton. Prosecutors say Mangione had arrived in New York on 24 November 2024, stayed in a hostel using a fake New Jersey driver's licence under the name Mark Rosario, and travelled around the area where Thompson was later killed. Police later recovered a backpack discarded in Central Park containing Monopoly money and a black Tommy Hilfiger jacket.

Mangione's federal guilty plea brings one chapter of the case to a close, but the separate New York state murder trial over the killing of Brian Thompson is due to begin next month.