- 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 the judge this week with his team's consent — is Avraham Chaim Moskowitz, a veteran death penalty attorney who also reps a Pakistani man accused of plotting to assassinate President Donald Trump and other political figures.
The federal courts mandate and pay for legal experts — termed "learned counsel" — to join the defense teams of defendants charged in capitol cases.
Moskowitz's most notorious case is from the 1990s, when he defended Ramzi Yousef, the Kuwaiti terrorist convicted of lighting the 20-foot fuse that set off the first World Trade Center bombing in New York. The 1993 bombing 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-scheduled trial on murder charges that, by law, could result in the death penalty or life in prison. Prosecutors have yet to say publicly if they will 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 LLP.
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."
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, 46, a Pakistani with ties to Iran who was arrested in July and accused of paying undercover agents to assassinate Trump and other political figures.
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 manhunt. Thompson was shot 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 specifically 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 allegedly wrote in a spiral notebook law enforcement says he was carrying when 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 murdered Thompson as an act of terrorism.
In Pennsylvania, he faces state forgery and firearms charges as arresting officers said they recovered a false New Jersey driver's license, a black, 3D printed pistol, a silver silencer, and seven nine-millimeter full metal jacket rounds.
