'Free Luigi!' Fellow inmates express support for alleged assassin
Other inmates in the prison where UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting suspect Luigi Mangione is awaiting extradition to New York called for him to be freed.
The 26-year-old Mangione has a cell to himself at the State Correctional Institution Huntingdon in Pennsylvania while he waits to be transferred to Rikers Island, and NewsNation spoke to some of the other inmates about the suspected assassin.
“Luigi’s conditions suck,” inmates shouted to NewsNation’s Alex Caprariello. “Free Luigi.”
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Gene Borrello, a former organized crime associate who spent four years at Rikers, which he called “most dangerous [prison] in America," told the outlet that Mangione would face harsh conditions and safety concerns there.
“You have to watch your back every day,” Borrello said. “There’s no structure. It’s just complete chaos. … It’s nonstop stabbings and gang violence where the cops are scared to come to work. It’s a place you want to avoid.”
Police say fingerprints taken from Mangione match those found on a water bottle found in an alley near the hotel where health care executive Brian Thompson was shot and killed last week, and officers said he had a mask, firearm, suppressor and fake New Jersey ID connecting him to the killing when he was apprehended Monday in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Mangione also had a manifesto and spiral notebook with a “to-do” list, according to news reports, and he allegedly wrote in the manifesto that he acted alone and “apologizes for any strife or traumas, but it had to be done.”
“Frankly, these parasites had it coming,” the manifesto says.