Luigi Mangione's Team Negotiating Plea Deal with Feds

**Brendon Geoffrion** (0:08)
Hey, welcome to The TMZ Podcast. After a new edition, I am Branson Huirk.

**Charlie Cotton** (0:13)
I am Eric Wilson.

**Brendon Geoffrion** (0:15)
Welcome back, Eric.

**Charlie Cotton** (0:16)
Hey, happy to be here. Happy Wednesday.
Hump day.

**Brendon Geoffrion** (0:20)
You happy it's Wednesday?

**Charlie Cotton** (0:21)
You know, I thought yesterday was Wednesday, so I'm actually hating today because I was hoping it would be Thursday. That's how calendars work, though.

**Brendon Geoffrion** (0:29)
Well, I hope everyone is having a great Wednesday as you're tuning in from your vehicle, from your car, from your bike, from your scooter.

**Charlie Cotton** (0:35)
Hope you're not watching us on YouTube in your vehicle.

**Brendon Geoffrion** (0:37)
Maybe your skateboard?

**Charlie Cotton** (0:38)
No.

**Brendon Geoffrion** (0:39)
Possible. Possible. Yeah, welcome. We got two stories for you today because they're heavy.
Luigi Mangione could be free soon. Can I say that?

**Charlie Cotton** (0:52)
No, probably not.

**Brendon Geoffrion** (0:53)
You don't think so? But I can say that maybe this is because a plea deal is in the works.
Yes? Yeah.

**Charlie Cotton** (1:02)
You want me to take over because you don't know what this is?

**Brendon Geoffrion** (1:03)
No, I do. I'm just saying, can I say that, that it's soon?

**Charlie Cotton** (1:06)
Luigi Mangione. We have an exclusive on the site, tmz.com. He is entering allegedly into plea negotiations, which could help him both in the state and the federal case.
So let's get down to it here. Luigi Mangione's legal team is reportedly engaged in serious plea negotiations with federal prosecutors that could dramatically affect both the cases. Negotiations are real. Discussions include a possible guilty plea to murder. So you're like, oh, well, how could that be good? He's pleading guilty to murder. Well, here's what this could possibly be. This is called an open plea. So essentially he's going to plead guilty to the murder and then still go through a trial. And the trial allows the judge to hear everything related to the case, including what the defense was going to argue, which is extreme emotional disturbance by Luigi for how the health care system treated him, his personal experiences with that. And this is all in his diary that the police took when they arrested him.
So essentially the judge will hear all of this and then sentence him after the fact. This would take the death penalty off the table, possibly life, and could get him to around 20 to 30 years instead of being murdered, which even the president called for last year.

**Brendon Geoffrion** (2:33)
Not bad, 20 to 30

**Charlie Cotton** (2:34)
Not bad.

**Brendon Geoffrion** (2:35)
50 years old. How old is he again?

**Charlie Cotton** (2:45)
Twenty-eight years old.

**Brendon Geoffrion** (2:46)
Boy.

**Charlie Cotton** (2:47)
So yeah, so an open plea and a sentence that's more favorable than life in prison. Again, probably more likely 20 to 30 years. Now, here's how this could potentially affect the New York case, which are essentially the same charges.
If he goes through this trial, gets 20 to 30 years or even life, after that fact, then we're entering into double jeopardy territory for the state case, because they would be trying him for essentially the same thing, and that, my friend, is double jeopardy. I've seen the movie. I know what that is.

**Brendon Geoffrion** (3:21)
I haven't seen it.

**Charlie Cotton** (3:23)
It's not worth it. So we cite in this article that we published this morning, again, this was our exclusive, Paul Manafort's 2019 New York fraud case. Manafort successfully raised a double jeopardy argument in New York State Court and won.
So that could be essentially no death penalty, no life sentence, a shorter sentence, and the state case is essentially kicked away.

**Brendon Geoffrion** (3:49)
At the end of the day, this guy killed somebody, allegedly.
I don't know. Whichever way people want to spin it, go about it, and I'm sure people have their opinions in the comments right now, is that Luigi did what he had to do. But it's like you killed a guy with a family. The guy wasn't Hitler, you know? Like, wasn't a part of maybe a good pharmaceutical system. But at the same time...

**Charlie Cotton** (4:17)
Yeah, I would like to reserve my opinions on this one personally. But I will say...

**Brendon Geoffrion** (4:22)
Good journalist you are by doing that.

**Charlie Cotton** (4:23)
You know, you gotta be fair. Gotta be unbiased.

**Brendon Geoffrion** (4:25)
Very partisan.

**Charlie Cotton** (4:26)
Yes, he did in fact kill a man, point blank to the back, you know? And this guy, I don't know, I forget if he was actually, if Brian Thompson, UnitedHealthcare, if he was even a member of that insurance or anything, or if that was just an example of something to take out.