The U.S. justice system revolves around the presumption of innocence, but Italian grandmothers are under no such obligation.
Luigi Mangione’s arrest may have cost him a piece of his grandmother’s $30 million-plus fortune thanks to a provision in her will disinheriting anyone charged with a crime, TMZ reported.
The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate was arrested and charged with murder this week for allegedly shooting and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Dec. 4 outside the company’s annual investors meeting in New York City.
Mangione comes from a wealthy and influential real estate family in Baltimore, where his relatives responded with shock to news of his possible involvement in Thompson’s death. His grandfather Nicholas built his company from the ground up, eventually amassing a fortune worth tens of millions of dollars.
Nicholas died in 2008 at age 83, while his wife Mary C. Mangione died last year. According to documents obtained by TMZ, her estate was worth at least $30 million and maybe even as much as $100 million.
Her assets were left in a trust to be distributed among her 10 children, with her 37 grandchildren—including Luigi—presumably slated to receive something as well.
But Mary Mangione’s will specifies the trustees—who include Luigi’s father Louis—can disinherit anyone who has been “charged, indicted, convicted of or pleads guilty to a felony.”
Perhaps most damningly, the documents specify that “benefit of the doubt is not given to the individual,” and that Mary Mangione particularly wanted any heirs charged with “heinous” or violent” crimes to be cut off.
The will has only recently been probated, so it’s not clear yet how the trustees will respond to the provision. TMZ contacted the family and the lawyer handling the estate but didn’t hear back.
Video surveillance of Thompson’s shocking death shows a masked assassin walking up behind him and shooting him in the back while a stunned bystander watches. After a five-day manhunt, a tipster at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania led police to Mangione, who officials say was carrying a 3D-printed gun that matched the shell casing found at the scene.
The casings had the words “Deny,” “Defend” and “Depose” written on them in permanent marker, apparently in reference to tactics that insurance companies like United use to avoid paying healthcare claims.
Mangione is being held without bail at a state corrections facility in Pennsylvania.
