Luigi Mangione latest: Death penalty off the table, judge rules
Luigi Mangione appears for a suppression of evidence hearing in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan Criminal Court, December 18, 2025 in New York City. (Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York on Friday dismissed the death-eligible counts from Luigi Mangione’s indictment, clearing the way for his federal trial to begin in October.
“Tortured and strange” though she said her conclusion may be, U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett ruled stalking is not a crime of violence and, therefore, not a predicate to make the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson a capital crime.
“No one could seriously question that this is violent criminal conduct,” Garnett wrote. However, her opinion said that the U.S. Supreme Court requires her to analyze the allegations in a way that is “totally divorced from the conduct at issue.”
Garnett said crimes of violence must, by definition, involve force and, theoretically, stalking could be committed without it.
The defense wanted the death penalty taken off the table, arguing that stalking “fails to qualify as a crime of violence” and therefore cannot be the predicate to make Mangione eligible for the death penalty if he is convicted of the federal charges. The defense also argued that the decision to seek the death penalty was political and circumvented the federal government’s protocols.
Mangione, who is accused of stalking and killing Thompson in Midtown Manhattan in December 2024, has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges.
With the death penalty off the table, Garnett said Mangione’s federal trial will begin with opening statements on Oct. 13. Garnett said jury selection will begin on Sept. 8.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office is separately trying to convince a state judge to put Mangione on trial on July 1, before the federal case.
Garnett on Friday also declined to suppress evidence seized from Mangione’s backpack when he was apprehended in Altoona, Pennsylvania. This ruling will allow prosecutors to use key evidence at trial, including the alleged murder weapon and writings that prosecutors say amount to a confession.
Garnett said the search fell within multiple exceptions to the requirements for obtaining a search warrant, including the discovery of the weapon and the likelihood that the evidence would have been discovered inevitably.
Mangione’s lawyers had argued the backpack search was illegal.
ABC News’ Peter Charalambous contributed to this report.
An undated photograph of Emmanuel Damas. (Courtesy of the Nelson family)
(NEW YORK) — Last week, Presner Nelson went to a shopping mall with one goal in mind: to find a suit his brother, who died in immigration federal custody in March, would wear in his casket.
Nelson’s brother, Emmanuel Damas, died after allegedly complaining for roughly two weeks of a toothache that Nelson believes could have been treated.
“This was the first time I had to do this in my life — it was not easy,” Nelson told ABC News.
The death of Damas, a Haitian immigrant who Nelson says arrived in the U.S. legally and had a pending Temporary Protected Status application, comes amid growing concerns from lawmakers and immigrant advocates about the conditions in migrant detention facilities, and a sharp increase in immigrant deaths in detention under the second Trump administration as it pursues its immigration crackdown.
Most deadly period According to an ABC News analysis of Immigration and Customs Enforcement data and the number of detainee deaths provided to Congress from ICE, the first 14 months of the second Trump administration represent the most deadly period for the federal detention system in recent years — with the exception of 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic contributed to detention deaths.
As of March 25, 44 people have died in government custody during the current Trump administration, according to figures shared by lawmakers, with two of those fatalities being victims of a shooting last September at a Dallas detention facility. The rise in fatalities comes as the detention population reaches record highs, with over 70,000 people currently detained in federal immigration custody.
The data analysis reveals a stark and rapid acceleration in the mortality rate within federal facilities. While the figure was as low as one death per 100,000 admissions in 2022, that number surged to about seven deaths per 100,000 admissions in 2025, even when excluding the two people shot while in custody. And in just the first ten weeks of 2026, the rate is currently at 12 deaths per 100,000 admissions.
Using a methodology established by researchers and detention statistics provided by ICE, ABC News calculated estimated mortality rates per 100,000 detention admissions for the calendar years 2019-2025, plus Jan. 1 through March 16, 2026. Using a rate shows whether mortality is increasing beyond what would be expected from higher detention admissions alone.
“There is really no contest — fiscal year 2026 is on track to be the deadliest year ever in the history of ICE,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration policy expert with the American Immigration Council who did his own data analysis of ICE deaths.
“Things are dramatically worse this year. We are seeing more deaths than ever,” Reichlin-Melnick said.
Scrutiny over the deaths of detainees has grown as the Trump administration has pressured ICE to increase arrests and has dramatically expanded detention space by converting warehouses and other spaces into detention facilities. A document shared by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency with New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte shows the government expects to spend $38 billion converting these spaces and increasing detention capacity by 92,600 beds.
Under previous administrations, the government has found ways to mitigate the number of people in detention by enrolling detainees in “Alternatives for Detention” efforts, which can involve scheduling regular check-ins with ICE, and mandating the use of ankle monitors.
The Trump administration has doubled down on invoking mandatory detention for undocumented immigrants, and in some cases even for those who are in the process of obtaining legal status. The government has also restarted detaining families with children at facilities like the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.
“They’re making a decision to take a U.S. citizen child and detain them with their parents. They’re making a decision to detain someone who’s lived here peacefully for 20 years. That is their choice, and they need to be pushed further on that,” said Andrea Flores, an attorney and immigration policy expert who is a former DHS and White House official. “Nobody should lose their life because they went through our immigration system — but that, in and of itself, has been a problem across administrations. And so there’s been work that’s needed to be done on this.”
The case of Emmanuel Damas In a statement, ICE described Damas as a “criminal illegal alien” arrested in Boston for assault and battery. His brother Nelson disputes this, saying Damas was in the country legally under a humanitarian parole program and had a pending petition for Temporary Protected Status.
Nelson also said Damas was never convicted following his arrest and that the arrest stemmed from a misunderstanding when someone called police to report that Damas’ 12-year-old son appeared to be walking by himself on a sidewalk. Damas mistakenly believed his son had called the police on him, became angry, and gestured as if to hit him but never made physical contact, Nelson said.
Damas was taken to jail where he was transferred into ICE custody before Nelson could bail him out, Nelson said.
Nelson said when he last spoke on the phone with his brother on Feb. 16, Damas complained about a toothache he’d had for the last two weeks. According to Nelson, his brother had claimed he was denied multiple requests to see a dentist.
Two days later Damas called their mother but he had difficulty speaking, Nelson said. Nelson believes his brother could not speak clearly because the toothache had developed into an abscess and his jaw had swollen. He did not complain of shortness of breath, Nelson said.
The next day, according to ICE, Damas was “immediately” taken to a hospital on Feb. 19 after allegedly reporting shortness of breath and was subsequently transferred to an Intensive Care Unit at a hospital in Phoenix for a “higher level of care.”
It’s unclear when he was placed on a ventilator, but ICE said that by Feb. 20, Damas “remained intubated” and underwent a series of tests.
On Feb. 22, the hospital in Phoenix “reported the likely diagnosis to be septic shock due to pneumonia,” ICE said.
Before he was transferred to Scottsdale Osborn Medical Center on Feb. 25, Damas “had two chest tubes placed on his right side and a thoracentesis was completed to help remove excess fluid from the pleural spaces around the lungs,” ICE said.
On Feb. 28, Nelson said his family was told they’d be allowed to visit him in the hospital and four of his relatives, including his mother, were able to see him the next day.
“But at that point on, it was too late, there was not much I could be done to save his life,” Nelson said. “So when my mom got there, he was in a coma.”
At 1:12 p.m. on March 2, Damas was pronounced deceased.
In a statement provided to ABC News about Damas and the number of recent detainee deaths, a DHS spokesperson said Damas “refused” dental extraction and had claimed in January that his toothache had gone away. The spokesperson said that in February, Damas was again seen “for bleeding gums and loose front teeth” and again refused to have two teeth extracted.
“It is a longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an individual enters ICE custody. This includes medical, dental, and mental health services, access to medical appointments, and 24-hour emergency care,” the spokesperson said. “Many individuals receive healthcare in ICE custody that exceeds what they have previously experienced.”
Damas believes his brother would be alive if he had received adequate medical care for his toothache.
“They waited for too long to take him to the hospital to be seen by a dentist. So on the nineteenth, when they finally realized, it was too late because he had that infection going on for two weeks,” Nelson said. “He asked for help for two weeks — they said that he was faking it.”
‘Presumed suicides’ The recent surge in detainee deaths includes a number of “presumed suicides,” including 19-year-old Royer Perez-Jimenez, who died on March 16 in Florida, and Victor Manuel Diaz, who died in a Texas facility in January.
In a press release, DHS said that Diaz died in ICE custody on Jan. 14 at Camp East Montana in El Paso, after staff found him “unconscious and unresponsive in his room.” A DHS spokesperson confirmed this month that Perez-Jimenez was found “unconscious and unresponsive” by a Glades County detention officer.
While the department noted that “the official cause of death remains under investigation,” they labeled the incident a “presumed suicide.” However, Diaz’s family told ABC News they do not believe he took his own life and are calling for a full investigation.
“Suicide is a preventable cause of death for people in custody,” Reichlin-Melnick told ABC News. “It’s something that jails should be working to prevent, and yet we’ve now had three or four suicides just in 2026 alone, including the 19‑year‑old who died recently.”
Questions regarding the Department of Homeland Security’s statements about ICE deaths have been further fueled by the case of Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban immigrant who died at the Camp East Montana facility in January.
While DHS initially stated Campos died after “experiencing medical distress,” an autopsy report from the El Paso County Medical Examiner later ruled the death a homicide, citing “asphyxia due to neck and torso compression.”
Attorneys for the Campos family filed an emergency petition in January to stop the deportation of witnesses who alleged guards choked and asphyxiated him.
For families like these, answers about their relatives’ death can be hard to come by.
“We don’t know what happened to him in that place,” a sibling of Diaz recently told ABC News in Spanish.
Nelson says he already knows why his brother is gone.
Retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. William N. McCasland (U.S. Air Force)
(ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.) — The search is intensifying for a missing retired Air Force general weeks after he mysteriously disappeared in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Retired Maj. Gen. William N. “Neil” McCasland, 68, was last seen at his Albuquerque home on Feb. 27, according to the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office.
At 10 a.m. that day, a repairman was at McCasland’s home and interacted with him, Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen said at a news conference on Monday. At 11:10 a.m., McCasland’s wife left the house for a medical appointment, and when she returned home at 12:04 p.m., he wasn’t there, the sheriff said. She reported him missing at 3:07 p.m., the sheriff said.
McCasland “did state that he was experiencing a mental fog” and was looking into it, Allen said.
“That was his statement about what he was experiencing, that was cited as reasons for stepping down from some groups that he was working with,” Lt. Kyle Woods added.
“There’s no indication … that Mr. McCasland was disoriented, confused,” Woods continued. “Arguably, he would still be the most intelligent person in the room.”
There have been no confirmed videos or sightings showing McCasland’s direction of travel, Allen said.
His phone was left behind at the house, which is out of the norm, authorities said.
Everyone in the area has been interviewed, Woods said, adding, “we have absolutely nothing that would suggest anything nefarious has occurred.”
Hundreds of homes in the area were canvassed as authorities looked for surveillance footage, the sheriff said, and drones, helicopters and canines have been used in the search.
A gray U.S. Air Force sweatshirt was found about 1.25 miles east of McCasland’s house, but family and friends have not confirmed that the sweatshirt is associated with McCasland, Allen said. No blood was detected in the initial processing, the sheriff added.
McCasland held a number of “space research, acquisition and operations roles within the Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office” while enlisted, according to the Air Force. The roles included director-level positions at the Pentagon, as well as commanding the Phillips Research Site of Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, and the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, according to the Air Force.
Still unaccounted for is McCasland’s wallet, a .38 caliber revolver and leather holster, and a red backpack, the sheriff said.
The sheriff asked residents to check their surveillance videos, with the priority focused on Feb. 27 between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Tips can be submitted at 505-468-7070, the sheriff said.
U.S. President Donald Trump departs the White House on January 27, 2026, in Washington, DC. President Trump is en route to Clive, Iowa for a rally with supporters where he is expected to talk about energy and the economy in his speech. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — In the hours after FBI agents seized 2020 election ballots from an elections facility in Georgia on Wednesday, President Donald Trump posted a series of thoroughly discredited conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election — and the 2016 election too.
Fulton County officials said Wednesday that the FBI seized original 2020 voting records while serving a search warrant at the county’s Elections Hub and Operations Center. The FBI said they were conducting court-authorized activity at the facility, but said they would provide no further information.
Late Wednesday night, the president reposted to his social media platform a claim that Italian military satellites had been used to hack into U.S. voting machines to flip votes from Trump to Joe Biden.
“China reportedly coordinated the whole operation,” the post reads. “The CIA oversaw it, the FBI covered it up, all to install Biden as a puppet.”
That was just one of a flurry of posts and reposts by Trump making discredited claims about the 2020 election, directly tying the allegations to the FBI’s seizure of ballots on Wednesday.
“This is only the beginning,” Trump said, reposting other posts about the FBI’s action in Georgia. “Prosecutions are coming.”
The development comes after Trump has repeatedly made baseless claims that there was voter fraud in the 2020 election, specifically in Georgia, that contributed to his election loss. Georgia officials audited and certified the results following the election, and numerous lawsuits challenging the election results in the state were rejected by the courts.
Among the statements posted and reposted by Trump following the FBI’s actions in Georgia is one on the 2016 election that falsely claims that “Barack Hussein Obama” falsified intelligence and “conspired with foreign powers, not one, not two, not three, but four times to overthrow the United States government in 2016.”
In addition to being baseless, the claim ignores the fact that Obama was president in 2016, so if he tried to overthrow the government, he would have been overthrowing himself.
The conspiracy theory about Italian military satellites is not new. In 2021, then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows directed both the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense to look into the matter.
As documented in my 2021 book, “Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show,” the conspiracy theory was brought to the White House by a woman who went by several aliases including “The Heiress” and was known at the Pentagon for her claimed ties to Somali pirates. She passed her material off to a national security council official at a supermarket parking lot in Arlington.
The Italian spy satellite theory was just one of many unsubstantiated allegations made about the 2020 election by Trump and his supporters. At a Trump campaign press conference in November 2020, lawyer Sydney Powell infamously claimed that voting machines had been rigged using software that was “created at the direction of Hugo Chavez.” This was an especially extravagant claim because Chavez, the former leader of Venezuela, had died three years earlier.
In 2023, Powell pleaded guilty to state charges of conspiracy to commit “intentional interference with performance of election duties” in Georgia and agreed to serve six years of probation and to pay a $6,000 fine.
And now it appears that Sidney Powell is back. In a post on X Thursday morning, DOJ official Ed Martin posted a picture of himself with Powell, writing, “Good morning, America. How are ya’?”
