By Jack Queen
NEW YORK, Jan 29 (Reuters) – A Minnesota man has been accused of impersonating an FBI agent to attempt freeing accused health insurance CEO killer Luigi Mangione from a Brooklyn prison, while carrying a barbecue fork and a pizza-cutter blade, court records show.
Mangione, 27, is awaiting trial in a death penalty murder case on charges that he gunned down Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, in Manhattan in 2024. Public officials condemned the shocking killing but Mangione became a folk hero to some Americans who decry steep healthcare costs and insurance company practices. He has pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges in separate state and federal cases.
Brooklyn federal prosecutors on Wednesday accused Mark Anderson, 36, of Mankato, Minnesota, of showing up at the Metropolitan Detention Center and telling prison staff that he was an FBI agent with paperwork signed by a judge authorizing the release of an inmate.
The criminal complaint does not identify the inmate, but a law enforcement source, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said it was Mangione. Anderson was working at a pizzeria after arriving in New York, the source said.
Information on a legal representative for Anderson was not immediately available on Thursday.
Prosecutors said Anderson provided his Minnesota driver’s license when asked to show credentials and told prison guards he had weapons. Guards arrested and searched Anderson and found a barbecue fork and a round pizza-cutter blade in his backpack, according to the complaint.
He threw documents at the guards that appeared to be unspecified claims against the U.S. Department of Justice, according to the complaint.
Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, in December 2024 after a five-day manhunt that followed Thompson’s murder. Police say they found a 3D-printed handgun, a silencer and a note criticizing the U.S. healthcare system in his backpack.
Mangione’s pretrial hearings have been packed with spectators, many of whom voice support for him, and demonstrators have gathered outside courthouses to protest against health insurance industry practices.
He is tentatively set to stand trial in Manhattan federal court in September on charges of murder with a firearm, use of a firearm in a crime and stalking. Mangione’s lawyers have asked a judge to either throw out the indictment over alleged legal deficiencies or to block prosecutors from seeking the death penalty if he is convicted.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to murder, weapons and forgery charges in a separate case in state court in Manhattan. No trial date has been set.
(Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Edmund Klamann)
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