The accused assassin charged in the ambush shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson claimed he was homeless after showing police a fake driver’s license when they found him five days after the murder, according to testimony Thursday on the third day of a suppression hearing.
Luigi Mangione’s defense team hopes to have key evidence tossed before trial.
Although police testified Mangione appeared nervous at first, after more than a dozen officers arrived, the suspect quipped, “Are you guys calling a couple more cars?” according to bodycam footage played in court. It has not yet been made public.
Police had been called by a McDonald’s manager who reported a suspicious person resembling the man identified as a person of interest in Thompson’s murder by the NYPD.
Mangione claimed he was homeless and had not been in New York recently, Altoona Police Officer Tyler Frye told the court.
Frye and Officer Joseph Detwiler were the first to arrive at the fast-food joint. Prosecutors have played bodycam and surveillance videos showing multiple angles of the encounter throughout the week.
When they approached Mangione, Detwiler asked him to pull his mask down. The officer testified Tuesday that as soon as Mangione did so, he recognized him from Fox News coverage of the assassination case. Mangione allegedly gave them a forged New Jersey driver’s license with the name “Mark Rosario.” Police later found his real license in his own name and issued in his home state of Maryland.
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“Visiting family down here?” Detwiler asked on bodycam video.
“No,” Mangione said. “I’m homeless.”
“Been to New York recently?” Detwiler followed up.
Mangione said no and shook his head.
Like Detwiler earlier this week, Frye testified that he recognized Mangione as the person depicted in wanted posters as a person of interest in the New York City assassination.
“I recognized the person in the media, specifically Fox News,” he said.
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With Frye on the stand, lawyers on both sides replayed bodycam video of the arrest.
In one snippet, after more police had arrived and an officer asked Mangione if he walked to or drove to the McDonald’s, the suspected assassin quipped, “Are you guys calling a couple more cars?”
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Mangione is accused of following Thompson to Manhattan and hiding out on a midtown street before shooting him in the back outside a Hilton hotel that was supposed to host UnitedHealthcare investors for a conference Dec. 4, 2024. He allegedly used the “Mark Rosario” ID to check into a Manhattan hostel before the murder.
Exactly a year later, Mangione was in court, laughing with his attorneys before the hearing kicked off. Except for a break Wednesday, his legal team has been attempting to show that his Fourth Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights were violated by police and jail guards in Pennsylvania.
Prosecutors denied those claims, and legal experts tell Fox News Digital that while Mangione’s lawyers have raised valid issues, they face an uphill battle convincing the court to suppress the evidence.
That evidence includes the suspected murder weapon, recovered from Mangione’s backpack, as well as journals he kept, in which he allegedly railed against the health insurance industry and outlined some of the reasoning behind the alleged plot to kill Thompson.
