Judge rejigs Luigi Mangione’s trial schedule to account for ‘dueling prosecutions’

MANHATTAN (CN) — A judge on Wednesday bucked Luigi Mangione’s effort to delay his federal trial to 2027, instead consenting to a slight, tentative delay to make more room for his state murder trial, set to start early this summer.

The “dueling prosecutions,” as U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett called them on Wednesday, mean that the government is at the mercy of state prosecutors, who will be presenting their case against Mangione in June.

“It is inevitable that in order for me to ensure that Mr. Mangione receives a fair trial, which must be my paramount concern, that some things are out of our control,” Garnett, a Joe Biden appointee, said at the scheduling hearing on Wednesday. “That is the situation we are in because of the nature of these dueling prosecutions.”

Garnett agreed to shuffle pretrial dates around to give the defense some breathing room between the two cases. The federal trial will now open on either Oct. 26 or Nov. 2, the judge ruled, a slight push from the initial Oct. 13 date.

It’s not quite the delay Mangione was seeking. His defense team argued for the federal trial to start in 2027, in hopes that the state trial might get pushed from June to this fall.

Federal prosecutors vehemently opposed that idea.

“Your honor need only look out the window to see the people who follow this defendant and believe that what he did was right,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Dominic Gentile warned the judge, a reference to Mangione’s many supporters. “That’s why the federal trial should proceed as the court has scheduled.”

But Wednesday’s brief hearing was met with hardly the same fanfare as some of Mangione’s other proceedings. While supporters of the accused health care CEO shooter lined the courtroom, the sidewalk outside was absent of the sign-wielding crowds that had appeared for some of Mangione’s other court dates.

Still, Garnett acknowledged that, while Mangione can’t be in two courtrooms at once, she didn’t want to be “held hostage” by the state case and agreed that the slight delay was the best course of action — “subject to be revisited.”

In both cases, Mangione is charged with shooting and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan in December 2024. He’s being represented by the same lawyers in each case: the husband-wife team of Marc and Karen Agnifilo.

Marc Agnifilo recently picked up another high-profile client, disgraced Hollywood film mogul Harvey Weinstein, further complicating his schedule.

“Defense counsel should not be able to use that and rely on it … to adjourn this trial, one that is actually ready to go,” Gentile said. “We have provided voluminous discovery. They’ve had that discovery for the last year.”

Karen Agnifilo said the Weinstein signing “has literally nothing to do” with their Wednesday request in Mangione’s case.

Last month, she had argued in court papers that it would be “impossible” for Mangione to prepare for a fall federal trial while fighting the state case over the summer.

“As a result of these competing schedules, Mr. Mangione is now in the position of needing to prepare for two complicated and serious trials at the same time,” she wrote in a filing on behalf of Mangione. “This scenario violates several of Mr. Mangione’s constitutional rights.”

As it stands, Mangione is still set for trial in New York Supreme Court on June 8. If the current schedules hold, he’ll head to the Southern District of New York for his federal trial less than five months later.

A spokesperson for Mangione didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mangione faces life in prison if convicted in either case. In state court, his top count is second-degree murder. He’s federally charged with stalking that resulted in Thompson’s death, after a higher death penalty-eligible count was tossed by Garnett in January.

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