NEW YORK — Hours after Luigi Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, New York Police Department officers tried to interview him as the prime suspect in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealth Group Inc. executive Brian Thompson.

NYPD Lt. David Leonardi testified that after learning Altoona police arrested Mangione in a local McDonald’s, he told an officer there to hold the evidence they gathered and avoid talking to him until he got there. Leonardi and his colleagues then drove to Altoona, about five hours west, on Dec. 9, 2024.

“I told them to hold the property, and I don’t want anybody speaking to the individual they had in custody,” Leonardi said Tuesday at a hearing in New York state court.

Leonardi testified on the seventh day of an evidentiary hearing in Manhattan where Mangione, 27, is charged with murder. His lawyers want a judge to rule that Altoona police illegally searched his backpack following a furious five-day manhunt for the suspect in the dramatic shooting outside a New York hotel.

Mangione’s lawyers have urged a judge to suppress evidence from his bag, including a 9-millimeter gun, a silencer, a loaded gun magazine, a diary and other evidence that New York authorities say ties Mangione to the shooting.

Leonardi, who was supervising the murder probe, said his detectives were already looking for a man who had bought a bus ticket to New York and checked into a hostel under the name of “Mark Rosario.”

Leonardi said it was “very significant” that Altoona police arrested a man who initially gave them a fake driver’s license with Rosario’s name. Mangione was handcuffed after he told Altoona police his real name.

“I wanted to have my investigators speak with Mr. Mangione,” Leonardi said.

After arriving in Altoona, Leonardi said he realized that local authorities had collected a significant trove of evidence, including the loaded 9-millimeter magazine. New York police had found 9-millimeter shell casings on the sidewalk outside the midtown Manhattan hotel where Thompson was shot.

Under questioning by Mangione attorney Marc Agnifilo, Leonardi said New York police spoke to him in a room in which they secretly videotaped the encounter.

Agnifilo suggested that it was improper to fail to inform Mangione that he was being recorded because Pennsylvania requires both parties to consent.

Through his questioning, Agnifilo said that prosecutor Joel Seidemann of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office gave Mangione his Miranda warning against self-incrimination. Agnifilo asked if Leonardi knew that Altoona police had read Mangione his constitutional rights earlier in the day.

Leonardi said he didn’t know that.

“Mr. Mangione said he didn’t want to make a statement?” Agnifilo said. “That’s correct,” Leonardi said. “He requested an attorney.”

Judge Gregory Carro suggested that the hearing may wrap up on Thursday.

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(With assistance from Patricia Hurtado.)

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