NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – Luigi Mangione, accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has not waived extradition, and all proceedings remain scheduled for Thursday, officials confirmed.
"Taking care of a rumor that just popped up – there has NOT been a waiver and all proceedings remain as scheduled tomorrow. Again, there has been no waiver," a spokesperson for the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania told 1010 WINS.
An attorney for Mangione told CBS News New York on Wednesday he will waive extradition at his hearing in Pennsylvania on Thursday. If approved, the suspect could appear before a New York City judge for arraignment on murder charges within hours.
Mangione has been charged with murder as an act of terrorism, prosecutors announced Tuesday as they worked to transfer him from a Pennsylvania jail to a New York court.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Thompson’s death on a midtown Manhattan street “was a killing that was intended to evoke terror. And we’ve seen that reaction.”
Thompson, 50, was shot while walking to a hotel where Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare — the United States’ biggest medical insurer — was holding an investor conference.
The killing kindled a fiery outpouring of resentment toward U.S. health insurance companies, as Americans swapped stories online and elsewhere of being denied coverage, left in limbo as doctors and insurers disagreed, and stuck with sizeable bills.
The shooting also rattled C-suites, as “wanted” posters with other health care executives’ names and faces appeared on New York streets and some social media users extolled Mangione’s deed as payback.
New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Tuesday that “any attempt to rationalize this is vile, reckless and offensive to our deeply held principles of justice.”
A New York law passed after the Sept. 11 attacks allows prosecutors to charge crimes as acts of terrorism when they’re “intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policies of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion and affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder, assassination or kidnapping.”
The 26-year-old was charged with Pennsylvania gun and forgery offenses and locked up there without bail. His Pennsylvania lawyer has questioned the evidence for the forgery charge and the legal grounding for the gun charge. The attorney also has said Mangione would fight extradition to New York.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.