Luigi Mangione, the accused killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has received hundreds of thousands in donations for his legal defense.
A crowdsourced legal defense fund set up on GiveSendGo has raised $359,200 for Mangione’s legal team as of the morning of February 12. The goal is $500,000. The fund was established by The December 4 Legal Committee, named after the December 4, 2024 incident.
A February 10 update on the fund’s website says, “We are excited to announce that we have established contact with Karen Friedman Agnifilo and the rest of Luigi’s legal team, who will be accepting your donations.”
The fund has been searched on Google so often that when The Dallas Express began to type the words “GiveSendGo” into the search engine, four of the first five suggestions involved the fund for Mangione.
“We are thrilled that the money raised by this campaign will go toward building the strongest possible defense against these insulting charges,” the update later said, claiming that the “average American understands who the real culprits are” in the situation.
Mangione was identified as the suspect in Thompson’s slaying in late 2024. He has been indicted on federal charges of stalking and murder, as well as state charges in New York for murder as an act of terrorism, criminal possession of a weapon, and criminal possession of a forged instrument. He also faces charges in Pennsylvania for allegedly possessing a fake ID.
Mangione ultimately pleaded not guilty to the state charges. A series of delays have set back his federal case.
After the accused was given a high-profile perp walk by New York law enforcement, Agnifilio told reporters that her client “is being treated like political fodder.”
Some have argued that Mangione’s case is impossible to defend without some psychiatric defense.
“I think the only real defense that you can possibly have here is some kind of insanity or mental defect defense,” former Assistant U.S. Attorney Nick Akerman, who served as a Watergate prosecutor, told CNN.