Accused Ivy League assassin Luigi Mangione appeared in Manhattan court Monday looking preppy for his key pretrial evidence hearing — with his trademark bushy brows carefully manicured as he smirked and furiously scribbled notes.
The 27-year-old former prep-school scholar, dressed in a gray suit over a Tattersall white-and-red checkered collared shirt, was led into the room through a side door before taking a seat at the defense table for the start of the proceeding.
Dozens of fans — who say they consider him akin to a national hero for trying to take on the broken US health-care system, even though he allegedly killed the head of a major company in the process — flocked to the courthouse in support of him. Some were dressed as the “Luigi” character from Super Mario.
The clean-cut Mangione, the scion of a wealthy Maryland family and former high school valedictorian at the tony Gilman School, appeared to have had his thick brows waxed for the occasion.
He broadly grinned his way through parts of the proceeding, looked quizzical at other times and rested his head in his left hand as surveillance footage showed his sensational arrest at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa.
Prosecutors are expected to call more than two dozen witnesses involved in his December 2024 bust on charges of executing the head of health-care giant UnitedHealthcare on a Midtown sidewalk.
The hearing will probe whether police breached Mangione’s rights by questioning him and searching his backpack before getting a warrant.
If Judge Gregory Carro sides with the defense, he could deal Manhattan prosecutors a crippling blow by barring them from showing jurors the key evidence cops found inside the backpack, including the alleged murder weapon and a notebook in which Mangione reportedly explained his motive.
The prosecution’s first witness Monday was Chris McLaughlin, a sergeant in the NYPD’s public-information office, who helped set the stage for the hearing by reviewing widely released images of the suspect released to the public during the manhunt for him.
The images, including the infamous photos of a man authorities say was Mangione slipping down his COVID-19 mask to flash a flirty grin at a Manhattan hostel worker, were displayed on four large screens in the courtroom.
Mangione scrawled down notes as some of the photos were displayed.
There also was footage played of the suspect ordering breakfast at the McDonald’s as he was being hunted, and it showed the well-heeled accused killer using a napkin to brush off his table at one point — before cops descended on him.
The court also heard testimony that Mangione’s bushy eyebrows were “the only thing’’ that customers and workers at Mickey D’s could see over his face mask — but that they were apparently enough to ID him.
“It’s not really an emergency, but I have a customer here that some other customers were suspicious of, that he looks like the CEO shooter from New York,’’ the eatery’s manager told a 911 operator around 9:15 a.m. Dec. 9, 2024, the day the suspect was nabbed.
The staffer told the emergency worker that the suspicious man was wearing a black sweater jacket with a medical mask on and a tan beanie pulled down — with only his eyebrows peeking out.
“The only thing you can see is his eyebrows,” the manager said.
The accused killer plotted to “rebel against the deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel” by targeting Thompson, the head of “a company that literally extracts human life force for money,” according to excerpts of diary entries cited in court papers.
Mangione, who graduated from the University of Pennslylvania, faces separate federal charges in a case where prosecutors have taken the rare step of asking for the death penalty.
The accused killer is being allowed to shed his drab inmate scrubs and instead wear his choice of outfit from a selection of two suits, three shirts and three sweaters, court records show.
