Luigi Mangione, jailed for allegedly murdering a health insurance CEO, has requested a laptop. Mangione, 26, is accused of fatally shooting Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel in December.
Mr Thompson, a father of two high school-aged children, had worked for decades at UnitedHealthcare and its parent company.
The Independent reported that in a court filing made public late Monday, Mangione’s lawyers requested that he be provided with a laptop for legal purposes.
They stated that the device would allow him to review more than 15,000 pages of documents, videos, and other materials related to his case. The laptop would be restricted, preventing internet access, communication with others, and the use of video games or entertainment content.
Mangione can only access case materials during meetings with his attorneys, but his defense team argues that available visiting hours are insufficient for proper case preparation.
Similar accommodations have been granted to other defendants at the facility where Mangione is being held.
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The Manhattan district attorney’s office, prosecuting Mangione under a rare New York state charge of murder as an act of terrorism, has not yet responded to a request for comment.
According to Mangione’s attorneys, prosecutors oppose the laptop request, citing concerns about witness threats.
Defence lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo countered in the filing that there is “no connection to Mr. Mangione for any of said alleged threats.”
Mangione, an Ivy League-educated computer science graduate from a Maryland real estate family, has pleaded not guilty to the state charges.
He also faces a parallel federal case that could result in the death penalty but has not yet entered a plea to those charges or to state-level gun possession and other charges in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested days after Thompson’s death.