Luigi Mangione is charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson

Luigi Mangione is charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson

Photo of Luigi Mangione taken Monday in a holding cell courtesy of the Altoona Police Department.

The Altoona Police Department

New York prosecutors on Monday charged Ivy League graduate Luigi Mangione with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, court records show.

The charges came hours after Mangione was arraigned in a Pennsylvania courtroom on gun violence and other charges related to his arrest early Monday at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Mangione, 26, was arraigned Monday night in state court in Manhattan on charges of murder, criminal possession of a loaded firearm, possession of a silencer and possession of a forged instrument, court records show.

The University of Pennsylvania graduate is accused of fatally shooting Thompson last Wednesday morning outside the Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan.

Thompson, a 50-year-old father of two, was on his way to an investor meeting for UnitedHealth Group, which owns his company, when he was shot by a masked gunman with a pistol that appeared to have a silencer attached.

Read more about the Brian Thompson shooting

UnitedHealthcare is the largest private health insurer in the United States, with annual revenues exceeding $200 billion.

Thompson’s family was hosting a private funeral for him early Monday in Minnesota when Mangione was taken into custody and questioned by Altoona police.

Police said a backpack belonging to Mangione contained a gun, a silencer and several rounds of 9mm ammunition after he gave officers a fake New Jersey ID believed to be the same ID used he checked into a Manhattan hostel at the end of November.

A McDonald’s employee had called police after becoming suspicious of Mangione, who was wearing a mask while sitting at a table in the restaurant.

Altoona police said when Mangione removed his mask at their request, they immediately recognized him as the person wanted by New York authorities in connection with Thompson’s murder.

Mangione, who comes from a wealthy Baltimore-area family, is being held without bail in a Pennsylvania prison on charges in that state related to the gun and the fake identification cards he was carrying.

Before his arrest in Altoon, New York police did not know his identity, although they were searching for a “person of interest” seen in surveillance images heading to and from the scene of Thompson’s killing.

Authorities believe the gunman fled New York a few hours after the shooting, possibly on a bus from the Port Authority terminal in Washington Heights, northern Manhattan.

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