Luigi Mangione accuses prosecutors of fudging subpoena for his health records

MANHATTAN (CN) — Luigi Mangione’s defense team lambasted Manhattan prosecutors on Thursday for “plainly lying” on a subpoena to nab their client’s confidential health records.

Mangione, 27, is currently awaiting a pair of murder trials after he was accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December. But his attorneys claim that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office defied federal medical privacy law while preparing for trial, fudging a subpoena in the process to procure Mangione’s confidential health information from his insurer.

“The district attorney falsely made up a court date — May 23, 2025 — and drafted a fraudulent subpoena that if Aetna did not provide documents on that date, it would be in contempt of court,” Mangione claims in a New York Supreme document, filed Thursday.

Mangione last appeared in court for this case on Feb. 21. He’s not due back until Sept. 16.

“The return date of the trial subpoena, May 23, 2025, was not a court date for this matter,” Mangione continues. “There was never a court proceeding scheduled for May 23, 2025, nor was there ever a court appearance scheduled for the entire month of May; rather, this is a completely made-up date which is not permitted by law, as trial subpoenas must only be returnable on a court date to the court.”

In the filing, Mangione argues that prosecutors sought two pieces of information from Aetna, one of the largest private health insurers in the nation: his account number and the time period during which he received coverage.

But prosecutors were actually given more than 120 pages of material about his health records, according to the filing.

“Virtually every page of the over 120 pages of materials received by the people pursuant to the unlawful subpoena indicate different diagnoses as well as specific medical complaints made by Mr. Mangione,” he claims. “They are privileged on their face.”

Throughout the process, Mangione claims prosecutors were “cheating” by unlawfully bypassing the court in the subpoena process by asking Aetna to send the information directly to them, stripping the defense of their right to object to what was sought.

The district attorney’s office said it would respond to the assertions in court papers.

“As defense counsel knows, the people requested very limited information from Aetna and Aetna sent us additional materials in error,” the office said. “We deleted the materials as soon as we became aware of them and brought it to defense and the court’s attention.”

The defense requested an evidentiary hearing to prod further into the issue. It seeks testimony from two assistant district attorneys — one who signed the subpoena and one who reviewed the produced materials — as well as the Aetna representative who provided that information.

Mangione also reserved the right to seek “various remedies” as a result of the purported infractions, “including the recusal of the prosecution team, suppression of evidence or dismissal of the indictment.”

It’s unclear why prosecutors subpoenaed this information from Mangione’s insurer. But the concept of for-profit health insurance has been a constant theme orbiting this case, as Mangione continues to be hailed as a folk hero by some activists and critics of the industry.

Last month, prosecutors published handwritten journals they say were found on Mangione’s person during his arrest. One of the entries acknowledged that murdering Thompson could shed light on “a company that literally extracts human life force for money.”

Another entry said that the UnitedHealthcare investor conference, where Thompson was headed on the morning he was shot to death, “embodies everything wrong with our health system.”

Mangione has taken issue with these state prosecutors before. As he noted in Thursday’s filing, he previously chided the district attorney’s office after it was revealed that one of its paralegals had accidentally listened to an 11-minute attorney-client phone call recorded from Mangione’s Brooklyn jail cell.

“The district attorney’s office has been cutting corners and carelessly violating Mr. Mangione’s rights in its unprecedented and unnecessary haste to try Mr. Mangione’s non-capital state case before his federal death penalty case,” he argued.

Indeed, Mangione faces dueling indictments for Thompson’s killing in both state and federal court. In his federal case, Mangione faces capital punishment — which his attorneys claim should put the state case on hold.

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