Luigi Mangione is still awaiting trial for the alleged murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, but from prison, he has requested to be allowed to use a laptop in jail.
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The 26-year-old man has been incarcerated since his arrest in December, and is accused of shooting Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel, but he has denied the federal charges as well as the state charges of weapons possession and other charges in Pennsylvania.
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Why did Luigi Mangione request to use a laptop?
In a legal document, Mangione’s lawyers requested that a laptop be provided to him for legal purposes and specified that it would be set up to allow him to view a series of documents, videos, and other materials related to his case in order to better prepare for it.
“Mangione would not be allowed to connect to the internet or communicate with anyone on the computer, nor could he play video games or watch movies or other forms of entertainment,” his lawyers stated in the document.
Although similar measures have been implemented for other defendants in the jail where Mangione is detained, the accused’s lawyers have pointed out that the prosecutors disapprove of the request for the computer, as they claim that some witnesses have been threatened.
Defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo wrote that there is “no connection” between Mangione and “any of said alleged threats.”
If the request is not approved, Mangione can view the material when meeting with his attorneys, but the issue is that he does not have enough visiting hours per day to do so and thus be able to properly assist in preparing his defense.
Mangione, an Ivy League graduate in computer science and hailing from a family of real estate agents in Maryland, pleaded not guilty to the charges against him in the state of New York. He also faces a parallel federal case that carries the possibility of the death penalty.