- Luigi Mangione has added a free-of-charge death penalty expert to his legal team.
- A veteran of terror cases, Avi Moskowitz also reps a Pakistani accused in a Trump assassination plot.
- Moskowitz's work on behalf of Mangione will be paid for by federal taxpayer dollars.
Luigi Mangione, the Ivy League grad charged in the execution-style shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has added a free-of-charge death penalty expert to his defense team.
Mangione's newest attorney — appointed by a magistrate judge this week with his team's consent — is Avraham Moskowitz, a veteran death penalty attorney who also represents a Pakistani man accused of plotting to assassinate Donald Trump and other political figures.
The federal courts mandate and pay for legal experts — termed "learned counsel" — to join the defense teams of people charged in capital cases.
Moskowitz's most notorious case is from decades ago when he defended Ramzi Yousef, the Kuwaiti terrorist convicted of lighting the 20-foot fuse that set off the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York. The attack killed six people and injured more than 1,000 more.
Mangione is being held without bail in a federal jail in Brooklyn, awaiting a yet-to-be-scheduled trial on murder charges that, by law, could result in the death penalty or life in prison. Prosecutors haven't said publicly whether they'll seek the death penalty in the case.
Mangione's lead attorneys remain Marc Agnifilo and Karen Friedman Agnifilo, the husband-wife defense team behind the Manhattan firm of Agnifilo Intrater.
The team "is pleased to have Avi Moskowitz lend his considerable expertise in death penalty cases as 'learned counsel,'" a spokesperson for the firm told Business Insider.
"The charges could not be more serious and our client needs every resource at his disposal to fight these unprecedented charges in three jurisdictions," the spokesperson added.
Moskowitz was appointed by the court from a panel of federally approved expert attorneys. A magistrate judge approved his appointment on Tuesday, according to court papers.
Moskowitz's other current high-profile client is Asif Raza Merchant, a 46-year-old Pakistani with ties to Iran who was arrested in July and accused of paying undercover agents to assassinate Trump and other political figures. Moskowitz did not immediately return a call Wednesday morning seeking comment on the appointment.
Mangione is the son of a wealthy real estate family from Maryland. A software developer and University of Pennsylvania graduate, he was arrested in Pennsylvania on December 9 after a five-day search. Thompson was shot on December 4 in midtown Manhattan on the sidewalk outside a UnitedHealthcare board meeting where the CEO was about to deliver an address.
The federal charges against Mangione allege he targeted Thompson at least six weeks before shooting the 50-year-old father of two from Minnesota.
Federal prosecutors say they recovered writings from Mangione that implicate him in the shooting.
"What do you do? You wack the C.E.O. at the annual parasitic bean-counter convention," he's accused of writing in a spiral notebook law enforcement said he was carrying when he was arrested.
"It's targeted, precise, and doesn't risk innocents," officials said he wrote.
Mangione also faces parallel state charges out of the Manhattan district attorney's office that allege he killed Thompson as an act of terrorism.
In Pennsylvania, he faces state forgery and firearms charges stemming from a false New Jersey driver's license, a black 3D printed pistol, a silver silencer, and seven 9 mm full metal jacket rounds that police in Altoona said they recovered during his arrest.