(NewsNation) — A lawyer for Luigi Mangione amended a motion to suppress evidence in his Pennsylvania criminal case, alleging police detained Mangione and seized items from him unlawfully, violating several constitutional rights.
Mangione is accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last December in Midtown Manhattan.
In the amended motion filed in Blair County, attorney Thomas Dickey says the Altoona Police Department detained Mangione at a local McDonald’s without sufficient evidence he was a legitimate suspect.
The original motion was filed two weeks ago.
In his recent filing, Dickey alleges that “no official identification of the Defendant, as being the suspect from New York, was ever made by any personnel from the State of New York, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, or the FBI.”
The arrest happened when Mangione was eating breakfast, and a customer pointed him out to a McDonald’s employee, who then called 911.
Mangione was reportedly found with a gun and silencer, believed to be 3D-printed, and multiple fake ID cards, including one New York police said he used days before the shooting to check into a hostel in the city.
During the interaction, his defense team argued the police had surrounded Mangione, not giving him any way to leave, which amounted to an “investigative detention.”
This type of holding has Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment as well as state law protections, the motion stated.
The police lacked “reasonable suspicion and probable cause to stop, arrest and detain Mangione,” filings noted.
Anything that was seized of Mangione is, therefore, unlawful, they contend.
“Any evidence, seized, obstinate or in possession of law enforcement and/ or the Commonwealth, purportedly in support of any of the instant charges, was obtained illegally and unlawfully,” the motion stated.
Mangione faces multiple counts of murder, including murder as an act of terrorism under federal and state charges in New York and Pennsylvania after allegedly gunning down Thompson as he was walking to an investor conference in Midtown Manhattan on Dec. 4.
The federal charges could carry the possibility of the death penalty, while the maximum sentence for the state charges is life in prison without parole. Prosecutors have said the two cases will proceed on parallel tracks, with the state charges expected to go to trial first.