The U.S. government denied “eavesdropping” on UnitedHealthcare CEO murder suspect Luigi Mangione’s recorded jailhouse calls in a Monday court filing after his defense attorneys claimed federal officials shared his calls with the New York County Attorney’s Office (DANY).
Mangione’s New York-based defense attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said during Mangione’s Friday arraignment that one of his jailhouse calls with her was recorded and “eavesdropped on” by a member of the DANY’s team, noting that the DANY office informed her that one person listened to the call.
“To be sure, no one at DANY or the Government ‘eavesdropped’ on the defendant on a live basis,” federal prosecutors wrote. “Rather, consistent with well-known practice in federal and state jails, many of the defendant’s calls are recorded, with notice of the recording provided to him and the person on the other side of any calls.”
Prosecutors added that “a number of calls” between Mangione and Friedman Agnifilo “were provided by the Metropolitan Detention Center (‘MDC’) to the Government – and by the Government to DANY – because the defendant spoke to his counsel on a recorded and monitored jail line (not a line specially designated for attorney calls) and with counsel using a telephone number that was not identified as belonging to counsel (thus evading MDC’s process for filtering attorney calls before providing them to the Government).”
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Luigi Mangione appears in Manhattan Criminal Court for a status hearing in New York City on Feb. 21, 2025. Magnione is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. (Curtis Means/Pool)
“In any event, no member of the federal prosecution team has listened to any recording of any attorney call, and the Government has segregated all recordings of these attorney calls so that they cannot be accessed further,” prosecutors wrote.
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The government said it is “standard practice” for jail calls to be recorded through MDC’s call system, Trufone network, which plays a recording whenever a defendant makes a call stating that the call is being recorded and is subject to monitoring. The government has so far received two sets of recordings in the Mangione case from MDC, which it then provided to DANY.
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Luigi Mangione appears in Manhattan Supreme Court in New York City on Dec. 23, 2024. (Curtis Means for DailyMail/Pool)
Prosecutors further said the two sets of recordings contained one phone call between Mangione and his attorney, who “did not appear on the Trufone contact list that the MDC provided to the Government.”
On April 22, 2025, a paralegal at DANY was reviewing the recorded calls and “encountered this call between the defendant and Ms. Agnifilo (using the Agnifilo Number) and recognized it as an attorney call.”
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Luigi Mangioni is escorted from an NYPD helicopter in New York City, Dec. 19, 2024. (Rashid Umar Abbasi for Fox News Digital)
“The paralegal immediately stopped listening and reported the issue to the prosecution team at DANY, who promptly notified Ms. Agnifilo and one member of the prosecution team at the Government,” prosecutors said. “No one else from DANY and no one at all from the Government ever reviewed this or any other attorney call. The Government has now segregated this specific audio recording to prevent any further inadvertent access, and it understands DANY has done the same.”
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Fox News reached out to Friedman Agnifilo for comment.
Mangione pleaded not guilty to federal charges in a Manhattan court on April 25 in connection with UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s Dec. 4, 2024, murder.
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UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was killed on Dec. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/UnitedHealth Group)
Mangione was indicted in the Southern District of New York on charges of stalking and murdering Thompson, as well as using electronic communications, interstate travel and a firearm when he allegedly killed the healthcare insurance CEO.
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The suspect allegedly shot Thompson outside the Manhattan hotel where UnitedHealthcare’s annual shareholder conference was being held, in an act prosecutors believe was meant to send a message to the healthcare insurance industry based on a manifesto found on the suspect when he was arrested days after Thompson’s murder.
Luigi Mangione departs the courtroom following his arraignment in New York City Criminal Court on Dec. 23, 2024. (Rashid Umar Abbasi for Fox News Digital)
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If the 26-year-old is convicted of murder through the use of a firearm, Mangione could face the death penalty, as federal prosecutors have indicated in court filings.
Fox News’ Adam Sabes contributed to this report.
