Luigi Mangione’s attorneys say prosecutors wrongfully obtained his medical records

By Lauren del Valle, CNN

(CNN) — Attorneys for the man accused of gunning down the UnitedHealthcare CEO last December now claim in a new court filing that Manhattan prosecutors wrongfully obtained Luigi Mangione’s medical records from his insurance carrier.

In a letter filed Thursday, attorneys for Mangione said the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office obtained over 120 pages of information from Aetna, including information about “different diagnoses as well as specific medical complaints made by Mr. Mangione” without the court or defense team’s knowledge.

The prosecution improperly compelled Aetna to turn over Mangione’s medical records directly to its office without facilitation from the court, according to the defense letter.

“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,” the letter says. “Then, rather than having Aetna give the documents to the Court, as required by the already fraudulent subpoena, the District Attorney told Aetna to provide the documents directly to the District Attorney, intentionally eliminating the Court from the subpoena process and ensuring that the District Attorney would secure these confidential medical records.”

Mangione’s defense also argues the information prosecutors obtained from Aetna isn’t relevant to the state’s criminal case.

“As defense counsel knows, the people requested very limited information from Aetna and Aetna sent us additional materials in error,” a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office told CNN. “We deleted the materials as soon as we became aware of them and brought it to defense and the court’s attention.” The DA’s office said it will respond further in a court filing.

The defense has asked the court to hold an evidentiary hearing and for access to all communications between Aetna and the District Attorney’s Office.

“Aetna received a subpoena for certain medical records, and we provided them appropriately,” an Aetna spokesperson told CNN.

Mangione faces the death penalty in federal court where he’s indicted for murder and other charges related to the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

He has pleaded not guilty to all federal and state charges against him.

The shooting in New York City and subsequent dayslong manhunt that ended in Pennsylvania captured national attention as investigators shared details of Mangione’s alleged writings and the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” written on bullets found at the scene.

‘The target is insurance’

Diary entries written by Mangione reveal the 27-year-old’s detailed thinking before the killing, according to a previous court filing.

In August 2024, roughly four months before he allegedly shot and killed Thompson in midtown Manhattan, Mangione wrote in his diary: “I finally feel confident about what I will do. The details are coming together. And I don’t feel any doubt about whether it’s right/justified. I’m glad-in a way-that I’ve procrastinated bc it allowed me to learn more about (UnitedHealthcare).”

“The target is insurance. It checks every box,” he continued in the August 15 entry.

Mangione allegedly gunned down Thompson on a busy sidewalk as Thompson walked toward a hotel hosting his company’s investors’ conference, authorities said.

He was not insured by UnitedHealthcare from 2014 to 2024, prosecutors say, but at the time of his arrest, Mangione allegedly had a handwritten notebook that expressed “hostility toward the health insurance industry and wealthy executives in particular,” according to a federal complaint.

Friend, online postings cite back surgery

In recent years, Mangione suffered from troubling back pain and underwent surgery to treat it, according to a friend, R.J. Martin, and online postings.

Around 2022, Mangione moved to Hawaii, where he lived for about six months at a co-working and co-living space in Honolulu, Martin told CNN in December 2024.

Martin said he fell out of touch with Mangione and last exchanged texts with him earlier last year. Mangione told him that he had undergone back surgery and sent him a photo of his X-ray that, Martin said, “looked heinous, with just giant screws going into his spine.”

And on the book review website, Goodreads, Mangione reported reading or wanting to read a number of books about coping with chronic back pain. He also linked to handwritten notes laying out his workout routine, which state that he was suffering from spondylolisthesis, the slippage of a vertebrae in the spine.

Posts from a now-deleted Reddit account that does not list Mangione’s name but closely matches many of his biographical details – including his university, age, major and health condition – say that the user had suffered from back aches related to spondylolisthesis since childhood but aggravated the condition after a surfing incident.

In 2023 the user wrote that he had undergone spinal surgery, which improved his symptoms. The user did not appear to post about health insurance related to the surgery, or connect the treatment to UnitedHealthcare.

It’s unclear if any of the Aetna records turned over to prosecutors were related to a back injury or surgery, but the defense letter said prosecutors at least partially reviewed Mangione’s confidential doctor-patient privileged and HIPAA protected medical records.

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CNN’s Dalia Faheid, Casey Tolan, Blake Ellis, Melanie Hicken, Jeff Winter and Yahya Abou-Ghazala, Eric Levenson and Kara Scannell contributed to this report.