The Defense Fund: 3

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The following podcast explores an active investigation unfolding in real time.

Luigi Mangioni is considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

In the five days before Luigi Mangioni was arrested and named a suspect in the December 4th killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, December 4th had become a symbol of solidarity and resistance online.

This rather unprecedented manned hunt was still ongoing, and we preemptively made a fundraiser in case anybody ended up getting caught and alleged to be connected with the incident.

Within hours, a defense fund for the shooter emerged, not from an established legal organization or a deep-pocketed benefactor, but from a grassroots coalition.

The December 4th Legal Committee is made up of about 15 volunteers scattered across the country.

The December 4th Legal Committee was born out of urgency with one common goal, to ensure that whoever was accused of the crime saw a fair trial and has the financial resources to mount a robust legal defense.

The fund was started before any suspect had been named in this shooting for a few different reasons.

We believe everyone has the right to a fair trial.

I mean, they do, but we know that access to a fair trial is somewhat tiered based on how many resources you have access to.

And we know in the case of something like this, where someone has taken action that threatens the state, threatens the powers that be, threatens the insurance companies, the state was going to throw virtually unlimited resources at this.

So we wanted to make sure that whoever was eventually charged with this crime had access to just as many resources.

And a second mission that became apparent very quickly, looking at all of the messages that people were leaving on the fundraiser with their donations, was to lift up the voices of everybody who felt moved, represented, even defended by these actions.

As details of the case unfolded, so too did the depth of public outrage, not necessarily directed at the suspect, Luigi Mangioni, but at the system that had made his alleged actions resonate so powerfully.

The nation watched as a groundswell of support flooded into an unlikely corner of the internet, a give, send, go campaign gathering momentum at a pace no one could have anticipated.

I've never seen anything that unites people across lines of political difference like this has in my lifetime.

From Law and Crime and Twist, I'm Jesse Weber, and this is Luigi.

My name is Sam Beard.

I am host of the Party Girls podcast, which focuses on various social movements around the country and around the world.

And I'm a spokesperson for the December 4th Legal Committee, the group that is fundraising for Luigi Mangioni's legal defense on his behalf.

Sam got some help from his friends, too.

I got involved a little bit after the fun was started.

That's writer, activist, and podcaster Jamie Peck.

She co-hosts Party Girls with Sam, and the two of them have emerged as the public faces of the December 4th Legal Committee.

Jamie told us how their small but mighty group came together.

Some of us have known each other for a while.

Some of us met online.

Some of us have experience working with political prisoners.

But we all have experience dealing with the horrible healthcare system in our country.

This shared frustration became a driving force, compelling them to take action.

They knew they weren't alone in feeling that something needed to change, and the moment demanded more than just discussion.

It called for collective effort.

We're at a sort of a nexus in the human story where things will either continue to get worse or maybe folks can band together and make things better.

So we wanted to be a part of that.

And this was our way of doing it.

A lot of us had fundraising experiences for defendants with politicized charges or political prisoners in the past.

And the team trusted ourselves to make sure that we would do this well.

And we've got the skill sets to do this.

Let's give it a shot.

And it just so happened to catch.

It sure did.

The committee's efforts quickly gained traction, proving that they had struck a chord with a much larger movement.

We really were stirred into action because of not what transpired on December 4th, but what transpired in the hours after that morning, which was like unprecedented wave of millions and millions of Americans trying to figure out the significance of what that event was.

And immediately the conversation pivoted towards the state of healthcare in this country and how dismal it is, how difficult it is to live a dignified, healthy life in this country.

And it just felt like a really rupturous moment in a very important political moment in America's history.

Faced with this stark reality, the group knew they had no choice but to step up.

This wasn't just about one individual or one incident.

It was about seizing a crucial moment to push for something greater, a struggle.

perfectly embodied by Luigi Mangioni's case.

From the outset, their mission was clear.

No matter what the legal system had in store for Luigi Mangioni, they would not let him stand alone.

As everyone knows, legal defense is very expensive to get a good lawyer.

The fundraiser was launched on Give Send Go, a Christian crowdfunding platform, and that choice was no accident.

More mainstream platforms such as GoFundMe wasted no time shutting down any fundraisers connected to Mangione, citing policies against supporting individuals accused of violent crimes.

Etsy followed suit by scrubbing their site of merchandise featuring Mangioni's image.

But Give Send Go, known for hosting controversial fundraising efforts, welcomed the campaign with open arms.

The funds were designated exclusively for Mangioni's legal defense.

And by December 11th, just one week post-launch, the fund had already raised $30,000 of its initial $200,000 goal.

Money talks, and so does the comments section of the fund's page.

We've got everything from registered nurses and healthcare workers to doctors themselves, surgeons, people who have had loved ones or they themselves had claims denied by insurance companies.

But it's not just an echo chamber.

Scroll long enough and you'll find folks vexed by the idea of raising money for an alleged murderer who happened to have a fairly comfortable upbringing.

He hails from an affluent Maryland family that owns a network of assisted living homes.

We've received some comments online saying why would you raise money for a rich kid and why don't you give it to people who need help paying for their health care, etc.

etc.

Regardless of opinion, the comments section took on a life of its own.

A place for people to fill in the blanks in conversations they weren't seeing shake out in the mainstream media.

It's a channel for people to speak out when there are very few official channels for people to be expressing these kinds of feelings about it.

Here's a quote from a donor.

Ethics and morality only work in a just society.

When the justice system only protects the wealthy, we no longer live in a just society.

Then the definition of what constitutes murder shifts.

Brian Thompson was a corporate elite who profited from the pain, suffering, and deaths of other people.

Those people would not get justice in our unjust and corrupt system.

While the outpouring of support was staggering, so too was the backlash.

Critics called the fundraiser an endorsement of violence.

They questioned how anyone could justify donating money to a man accused of murder.

Here's a back and forth I had with trial lawyer and litigator Rich Schoenstein and my other podcast, Sidebar, on this very topic.

So I have a different feeling about this outpouring of support.

First of all, we've seen this all through history.

Jesse James had fans, Bonnie and Clyde had fans, Al Capone had fans, so there's nothing new about that.

Secondly, is this an outpouring or just a bunch of nitwits on the internet?

Have we seen one person of any consequence put their name to it and go on a TV show and say what this guy did is good and righteous and he should be congratulated?

Has a single real person taken that position?

I don't see, I haven't seen it.

Have you?

There are certain journalists who have been taking some creative liberties regarding this.

And by the way, he received over $500,000 in his legal defense fund.

There was just reported that somebody put forward $11,000, one anonymous donor.

That's real money.

That's real support.

Yeah,

I've heard that too.

That's not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things.

I mean, really?

Really?

Listen,

I'm surprised it's that much, right?

I'm surprised that that many people

gave money to an Ivy League educated rich guy who was accused of murder.

Like, he doesn't need the money.

He's got a family, or he could get a public defender if he doesn't have the resources.

So giving him money for his legal defense is garbage.

Critics argued that allowing such a fund sends a dangerous message, glorifying violent acts and disrespecting the victim's family.

Supporters counter that everyone deserves a fair trial and that high-profile defendants often face disproportionate prosecutorial force.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams even waded into the controversy, making a public showing of attending Mangioni's extradition.

Sam Beard had some strong opinions about that.

Close your eyes for a moment and try to remember the perp walk that they put Luigi through.

That's when the authorities marched the perpetrator, the accused, through public from one place to another, oftentimes from a police transport vehicle to court or something like that.

But they do so in a way where they collaborate with the media.

And we just saw how spectacular they really made that moment for Luigi, where, of course, they fly him down in a helicopter.

Eric Adams is there.

There's like two or three dozen cops, several of which have like assault rifles around themselves.

And then we just see Luigi in orange jumpsuit shackled in the front.

Of course, it's cold New York January weather and he's in short sleeves and they throw him into an armored van, treating him like Hannibal Lecter or something.

They do so to just demonstrate the sheer power of this state and to really just show how captured and how small this person is.

And at the end of the day, a lot of us feel like maybe that backfired.

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He might not be wrong.

To the committee and to thousands of donors, this case was about more than the actions of one person.

It's hard to untether, unsutured this like flashpoint of an incident that occurred on December 4th from the larger context in which that was situated.

We cannot underestimate how angry people are at the insurance industry, especially after seeing years and years of efforts at reform just completely fail and be stopped at every turn by these incredibly powerful forces within capitalist society.

A system of corporate greed and political negligence had left millions desperate and unheard.

People have lost all faith in the system, in the proper channels of change, in the sort of like very tired narratives that somehow these like dinosaurs in Washington are going to bring about the positive social change that they've never been capable of doing or delivering on.

And I think that's why people turn to these alternative media sources because they're like, well, something's not clicking with me in the New York Post or whatever.

So they turn to TikTok.

Social media has been a breeding ground for zealous support of Mangione's alleged actions.

On Reddit, X, and TikTok, responses to Brian Thompson's killing were far from what we've seen in other high-profile murder cases.

We see tens of millions, probably, of Americans just shrugging it off.

But on the flip flip side is the condemnation, the people who see supporters of Mangioni as morally bankrupt.

I think it's really terrible that some people seem to admire him, like him.

That's a sickness, actually.

That's really very bad.

Especially the way it was done.

It was so bad, right in the back.

It seems that there's a certain appetite for him.

I don't get it.

We asked Sam how he'd respond to those claims.

He says the answer isn't so cut and dried.

I'm glad to see people bringing up the question of what is just, what is moral, what is ethical.

Sometimes we don't pause for a moment to sort of check in and say, what does all of this mean?

What's the moral significance of this?

And as a moral matter, it's horrible when anybody has their life cut short by another person, especially when it could have been prevented.

But the same logic has to apply both ways, right?

A CEO had his life cut short.

a CEO who was regarded as being very effective in his field, but he was effective precisely because he profited from denying people claims, which cut their lives short.

Sam Beard takes a wider lens to the issue, highlighting a stark contrast.

While individual acts of violence face intense moral scrutiny, The vast systemic harm inflicted by corporate and institutional forces, particularly the for-profit healthcare industry, often goes unchallenged.

Preventing people from getting the healthcare that they need, that you and your company have access to and could provide them, but don't do so because it would threaten your business model, that is an act of violence too.

We can't just apply a simple moral rule without acknowledging that we're in an immoral system that degrades the value of some lives while elevating the value of other lives.

To challenge that is a political act, and when we treat it only as a moral act, we're sort of plugging our ears to its political content.

Jamie Peck expressed nearly identical sentiments.

You want to talk about violence?

This healthcare system kills thousands and thousands of people every year, completely avoidable deaths to enrich the profits of shareholders.

So that kind of social murder is something that I want everybody to pay attention to and think about because there are more kinds of violence than just one person shooting another person.

And that violence is usually 99.9% of the time directed from the top down rather than the bottom up.

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The growing support for the Defense Fund would prove that a significant number of people stand with Luigi Mangione.

After 12 days, the defense fund skyrocketed past $130,000.

And then, the next day, December 17th, Mangione was charged with terrorism, sparking an entirely new debate.

I do think the terrorism charge is an excessive gambit by the state, trying to send a message to anyone else who might be thinking about taking similar kinds of action against the ruling class and against the people who profit off of our sickness, death, and misery.

Trying to make an example of him to everybody else.

Mass shooters don't get charged with terrorism.

Right-wing violence doesn't get charged with terrorism, but this does.

I think that shows you where the state's priorities really lie and who they exist to serve and protect.

Meanwhile, the prosecution of Mangioni ramped up, with authorities pushing for the most severe punishment possible, setting the stage for federal charges that could lead to the death penalty.

The December 4th legal committee saw this not just as a legal battle, but a political one.

The The reason for them coming down so hard, the state coming down so hard on Luigi, and for the media coming down so hard against Luigi, is not because of what Luigi is alleged to have done, but rather it's because of the widespread, unprecedented, wildfire of support that came in its wake.

And that is what is having the powers that be shaking in their boots.

And that is why they're coming down so hard on this young man.

Fearing that authorities may be stacking every available deck against him, the fund's organizers raised their target from $200,000 to a whopping $1 million,

confident that supporters would continue to rally behind Mangioni's defense.

What we have seen is the entire weight of the state of New York, the city of New York, and the United States federal government, of all entities, throwing their force against this young man, laying out a series of charges, stepping stone charges that could lead to the most austere and inhumane punishment that the federal government has the ability to do, which of course is state-sanctioned murder, the death penalty.

The growing severity of the charges seems to match the rising funds in the defense campaign.

In other words, the harsher the government comes down on Mangioni, the more support he appears to gain among the masses.

By the end of January, it surpassed $330,000, drawing over 11,000 individual donors.

The average contribution hovered around $30, a sign of grassroots enthusiasm rather than reliance on a few major benefactors.

Then, on February 10th, Some representatives from Luigi's legal defense team reached out and said, hey, we just wanted to let you know that Luigi is aware of the fund and accepts the fund, and we would like to help make that that possible.

At this point, the fund had reached nearly $640,000.

It's very important to all the donors that all of the money goes exactly where it's supposed to be going.

And that process is well underway.

And I just, I think that that's fantastic.

I know it's extremely meaningful to the well over 12,000 donors.

And I'm really grateful for the opportunity to help.

Sam described the significance of the fund's success as twofold.

One is that Luigi is prepared to mount the fiercest legal defense possible as afforded to him under his constitutional protections.

And two, and perhaps more importantly, is that he is aware of just how much support he really has.

And him and his team are perhaps willing to tap in.

to that unprecedented popular support that their client has in order to secure the strongest legal defense possible.

And it's safe to say he has.

Luigi Mangioni's defense team is stacked with heavyweight talent.

Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a former top Manhattan prosecutor, once oversaw major cases, including the prosecution of Harvey Weinstein, before switching to high-profile defense work.

Her husband, Mark Agnifilo, has represented notorious figures like Martin Shakrelli and Sean Diddy Combs, bringing deep experience in complex criminal cases.

Jacob Kaplan, a specialist in white-collar defense, adds another layer of expertise.

On the federal side, Avi Moskowitz, a veteran in capital cases, has been brought in as learned counsel to handle the death penalty angle.

And in Pennsylvania, Thomas M.

Dickey provides local legal firepower.

This is a serious, battle-tested team, one with deep insider knowledge of both prosecution and defense, ready to take on one of the most politically charged cases in recent history.

But the Luigi Mangione Defense Fund is more than just a legal war chest.

I really hope that we can take advantage of this moment as time goes on and the incredible amount of anger, fear, just fatigue with the healthcare system that people are expressing to really spur a new mass movement or contribute to the one that we already have in this country for a Medicare for all system like they have in the rest of the developed world.

Whether this movement will influence policy changes remains to be seen, But one thing is clear.

Mangioni's story is far more than a courtroom drama.

It is a flashpoint in an ongoing struggle over justice, economic inequality, and the power of collective outrage.

On the next episode of Luigi, we pull back the curtain on who Luigi Mangioni really is with some of the people who knew him best.

It is completely just incompatible with my close friend and the times we enjoyed together also just how I watched him treat other people.

He was constantly just thoughtful and kind and would go out of his way to be there for others.

There's nothing that could say this was right.

There's nothing that could say that he's in his right mind.

Definitely not part of his character.

So I don't know what pushed him over the edge.

Every narcissist needs one thing,

a mirror.

And for this guy, his mirror is the public that thinks he did a good thing, the right thing.

This has been a Lawn Crime and Twist Production.

I'm your host, Jesse Weber.

For Lawn Crime, our executive producer is Jessica Lowther.

Our writer and senior producer is Cooper Moll.

Our editor is Anna McLean.

Our bookers are Diane Kaye and Alyssa Fisher.

Legal Review by Elizabeth Vulai and Stephanie Beach.

Key Art Design by Sean Panzera.

For Twist Media, our executive producers are Jane Lattman and Haruka Wakimoto.

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