Luigi Mangione’s legal team is pressing prosecutors to confirm whether his mother genuinely told the police that she could envision her son committing the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The team suspects law enforcement might have fabricated the statement, which has been widely reported and, according to them, could lead to an unfair bias against Mangione.

The controversy stems from a December 17, 2024, news conference where NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny disclosed that a tip related to a missing person case in San Francisco had guided them to the suspect in Thompson’s assassination. This development came amid a large-scale search operation for the suspected killer.

According to Kenny, Mangione’s mother had reported him missing to the San Francisco police on November 18, 2024. The detective handling her case informed the NYPD that the individual they were seeking closely resembled the suspect caught on camera checking into a Manhattan hostel shortly before Thompson’s murder.

On September 16, 2025, Luigi Mangione appeared in Manhattan Supreme Court for a hearing concerning the murder charges against him for the alleged killing of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare. This hearing is a critical step in the ongoing legal proceedings.

Authorities initially contacted Mangione’s mother on December 7, 2024, as part of their investigative efforts.

“They had a conversation where she didn’t indicate that it was her son in the photograph, but she said it might be something that she could see him doing,” Kenny told reporters. “So that information was going to be passed along to the detectives the next morning, but fortunately we apprehended him before we could act on that.”

Kenny’s remarks were widely reported by major news outlets, including Fox News Digital, and they were cited in a book published this month about the case.

Read the defense filing:

Mangione’s defense argued in a new court filing that they have not been provided any discovery documents related to this allegation involving his mother, Kathleen Mangione.

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was killed in December 2024. (AP Photo/UnitedHealth Group via AP)

“To date, there has been no documentation provided in discovery that confirms the Chief of Detectives’ statement as to Mrs. Mangione’s alleged statement,” one of his lawyers, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, wrote to a New York state judge. “In fact, all the discovery provided so far indicates that she did not make such a statement.”

She added that she could see only two plausible explanations — one that the statement was never made, or two, that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office had failed to meet its discovery obligations.

Bragg’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg arrives at Daniel Penny’s trial following a lunch break at the Manhattan Supreme Criminal Court building in New York City on Monday, December 2, 2024. (Julia Bonavita/Fox News Digital)

“We ask that the Court direct the District Attorney’s Office to state for the record whether Mrs. Mangione made this statement to law enforcement,” she wrote.

Through a spokesperson, Friedman Agnifilo declined to comment.

On Dec. 9, 2024, police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, received a tip that someone recognized Mangione from a wanted poster and that he was eating breakfast at the local McDonald’s.

They arrested him there.