Mangione: Cops Illegally Took My DNA

Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old accused in the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, claims police illegally took his DNA. Mangione was arrested Dec. 9 at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania after a customer reported that he resembled the suspect seen in surveillance footage. But Altoona police "had no objective grounds" to detain Mangione "other than a hunch and/or unparticularized suspicion," his lawyer, Thomas Dickey, writes in a court filing, per ABC News. He says there was no "independent corroborating evidence that [Mangione] was in fact the suspect sought in New York." According to Dickey, police got that evidence illegally.

Dickey previously claimed Mangione's arrest was illegal because he wasn't properly read his rights, per ABC. After detaining Mangione on charges of providing false identification and possessing an unlicensed firearm, officers allegedly gave him a snack and a soda—a guise for obtaining a DNA sample, Dickey writes, per the New York Post, arguing any such samples should be disallowed in court as a result. He says Altoona Police also "illegally seized" Mangione's belongings, including a notebook said to contain a manifesto. Dickey says the notebook "contained numerous personal writings covering a plethora of personal experiences" and calling it a manifesto was done "in an effort to prejudice any potential jury pool."

The documents were filed in connection with the charges Mangione faces in Pennsylvania, but the allegations against police could factor into Mangione's murder case in New York, per ABC. He faces state and federal murder charges, but has yet to be indicted in federal court. He was due to appear in Manhattan federal court this week, but the hearing was unexpectedly pushed to April 18, per WLS. (More Luigi Mangione stories.)