On Friday, Luigi Mangione’s legal team intensified their appeal to dismiss the death penalty from his case, citing a significant financial conflict of interest involving Attorney General Pam Bondi.

According to court documents reviewed by Fox News Digital, Mangione’s defense claims that Bondi’s push for the death penalty was inappropriate due to her past role as a partner at Ballard Partners. This lobbying firm had ties to UnitedHealth Group, which owned the company of the murdered CEO, Brian Thompson.

The legal team contends that Bondi continues to benefit financially from Ballard’s profit-sharing arrangement, arguing that this should have necessitated her withdrawal from any involvement in the case.

“Her neglect to step aside clearly breached Mr. Mangione’s due process rights, offering yet another justification for striking the Notice of Intent,” states the legal filing. A court hearing is slated for January 9.

An image juxtaposes Attorney General Pam Bondi with Luigi Mangione. In a legal filing, Mangione’s attorneys argue that Bondi was obliged to recuse herself from decisions regarding the death penalty in this federal case. (Image credits: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images; Curtis Means for Daily Mail via Pool)

Bondi announced in April that she was directing Manhattan federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty, declaring even before Mangione was formally indicted that capital punishment was warranted for what she called a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”

“The Attorney General personally directed line prosecutors to seek the death penalty in a public press release delivered via social media and then appeared on national television to claim that, based on her own experience as a capital crimes prosecutor, Mr. Mangione deserved to be executed,” the defense wrote in the Friday filing.

“This is a bell that can never be unrung,” the defense said.

Mangione’s attorneys further argued that when Bondi left Ballard Partners to become attorney general in 2025, the first defendant she “personally selected” for capital punishment was the man accused of killing the CEO of her former client.

Luigi Mangione, charged with the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, appears in State Supreme Court in Manhattan during an evidence suppression hearing in his case on Dec. 12, 2025. Mangione is being represented by Karen Friedman Agnifilo, left. (William Farrington for New York Post via Pool)

Mangione is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Dec. 4, 2024, outside a Manhattan hotel where the company was hosting an investor conference. The execution-style shooting was caught on camera and prosecutors allege that Mangione targeted Thompson due to financial and corporate grievances. Mangione fled the scene but was captured days later.

This is not the first time Mangione’s defense has sought to have the death penalty thrown out.

In October, attorneys argued prosecutors could not pursue the death penalty because the underlying stalking charge does not qualify as a violent crime.

Luigi Mangione is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, pictured, in December in New York City. (AP Photo/UnitedHealth Group via AP)

Mangione’s lawyers first moved in early 2025 to block the death penalty, arguing the decision was political and prejudicial — not the result of a neutral DOJ review — and later filed a more detailed April motion seeking to strike the death-eligible counts, accusing Bondi of prejudging guilt through public statements, before centering the argument on an alleged financial conflict.

He is being represented by Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a high-profile New York defense attorney who is also a former Manhattan prosecutor and former CNN legal analyst.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.