NEW YORK (AP) — Someone tucked a heart-shaped note of encouragement into socks packed for Luigi Mangione to wear to court last month in the UnitedHealthcare CEO murder case, according to court documents made public Wednesday.
A court officer intercepted the handwritten note, which urged the jailed defendant to “keep your head held high” and “know there are thousands of people wishing you luck,” according to a photo in court papers filed by Mangione’s lawyers. Written on pink paper, the message was signed “K / Free Luigi.”
The attorneys said they didn’t realize the note was stuck in the socks until the court officer found it Feb. 21.
The note episode was disclosed amid written arguments over various requests from the defense team. They include a bid for Mangione to get a laptop to review legal material in jail while he awaits trial in the December shooting death of Brian Thompson, 50.
Thompson was killed outside a midtown hotel where UnitedHealthcare was holding an investor conference. Mangione, 26, has pleaded not guilty to New York charges including murder as an act of terrorism.
Objecting to the proposed laptop as a request for unmerited special treatment, prosecutor Joel Seidemann wrote in a court document that “special treatment to the defendant’s benefit was violated when (prosecutors) made accommodations for defendant’s fashion needs during the last court appearance.”
Prosecutors and Mangione’s lawyers differ over how frequently jailed defendants switch from uniforms to their own clothing for routine court dates with no jury present. In any event, Mangione was allowed to change into clothes brought by his legal team for the Feb. 21 hearing.
The note — plus a heart-shaped thank-you note addressed to someone called “Joan” — were hidden in a piece of cardboard at the center of a new pair of argyle socks, according to the defense and prosecution letters to the court.
“This was obviously inadvertent,” Mangione lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo wrote. She said the defense hadn’t noticed the missives while hastening to get the clothes to him before court.
It’s not clear who wrote the notes or slipped them into the socks. The court documents didn’t say, prosecutors declined to elaborate and Mangione’s legal team declined to comment.
Mangione donned the socks but later took them off “because he felt that ‘they did not look good,’” according to Seidemann’s letter.
Mangione appeared in court in loafers, his bare ankles shackled.
While elected officials, UnitedHealthcare and others have decried Thompson’s killing, Mangione has attracted a cult following as a stand-in for frustrations over health insurance coverage denials and hefty medical bills. Dozens of his supporters showed up for the Feb. 21 hearing. One sported a green “Luigi” hat from the Mario Bros. video game franchise and many wore green, the Luigi character’s color, as a symbol of solidarity.
Mangione himself wore a green sweater, “consistent with what his sympathizers were calling for supporters to wear,” Seidemann noted.
Yet one of the prosecutors also wore green, Friedman Agnifilo retorted, suggesting that prosecutors focus more on “Mr. Mangione’s constitutional rights — and less on the color of Mr. Mangione’s sweater.”
In addition to the Manhattan case, Mangione faces federal charges in Thompson’s killing and state-level gun possession and other charges in Pennsylvania. He hasn’t entered any pleas in those cases.
