Luigi Mangione leaves the Blair County Courthouse:

HOLLIDAYSBURG — The man arrested in Altoona on Dec. 9 after being identified as the suspect accused of gunning down a health insurance provider CEO in downtown Manhattan was escorted back to New York City on Thursday, after two Blair County court hearings that drew national and international media attention, plus sidewalk demonstrators in support of Luigi Mangione.

Janiya Newton of Rochester, N.Y., carries a sign promoting the Luigi Mangione crypto coin intended to pay health claims denied by UnitedHealthcare as the news media films live reports from in front of the Blair County Courthouse on Thursday. Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

“Mr. Mangione, demand is made for your surrender in New York,” Blair County Judge David B. Consiglio told the Townson, Md., man, who has been incarcerated for 11 days at the State Correctional Institution in Huntingdon as a county prison inmate.

Altoona defense attorney Thomas M. Dickey, who last week objected to the extradition request, told Consiglio that things had changed because Mangione now has attorneys to represent him in New York.

“The waiver of this extradition won’t jeopardize his legal representation in New York or Pennsylvania,” Dickey said.

In New York, Mangione is facing first-degree murder as an act of terrorism and related charges in the Dec. 4 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. On Thursday afternoon, additional federal charges were filed, accusing him of traveling across state lines with the intent “to kill, injure, harass, intimidate” and surveil Thompson, based on a complaint prepared by the FBI.

Dickey said Thursday that he will continue to represent Mangione on his Blair County charges filed by Altoona police based on his Dec. 9 arrest at the McDonald’s restaurant on Plank Road, where they responded to the report of a suspicious customer who resembled the New York shooter. But his Blair County charges — reflecting Mangione’s possession of a ghost firearm and a false ID — are to remain on hold while the New York charges move forward.

Ashlyn Adami (left) and Ethan Merrill of South Bend, Ind., show their support for Luigi Mangione by telling their health insurance nightmares. Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

District Attorney Pete Weeks told Consiglio that he had no objection to Mangione’s return to New York.

“It would have been laughable and a waste of resources and time for us to try to keep this defendant here for our charges and delay New York’s custody of the defendant for the more serious case,” Weeks said later.

But Mangione’s Blair County charges will remain intact.

“We’re not in the practice of dismissing charges just because someone faces more serious charges somewhere else,” the prosecutor said. “We intend to keep our case active.”

Mangione says he understands

Brothers Ben (left) and Yoel Friedman of Monroe, N.Y., show their support of Luigi Mangione in front of the Blair County Courthouse on Thursday. Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

Inside the courtroom, about a dozen NYPD officers were seated directly behind Mangione, who regularly conversed with Dickey during the court hearings.

When addressing his Blair County charges before Magisterial District Judge Ben Jones and when waiving his right to an extradition hearing before Consiglio, Mangione answered “yes” when asked if he understood what he was doing.

Sheriff James Ott and two deputies, who brought the handcuffed Mangione into the courtroom, escorted him out of the courtroom and to a black SUV parked at the rear of the courthouse. From there, the defendant was driven to the Altoona-Blair County Airport, where he and several New York police officers boarded a small aircraft for a pre-arranged flight to Long Island. Subsequently, he was flown by helicopter into New York City to face court hearings there.

Dickey told reporters outside court that agreeing to the extradition was in his client’s best interest because it puts the focus on the New York case.

“We’re going to move forward with a vigorous defense,” he said.

Blair County District Attorney Pete Weeks addresses the media at the Blair County Courthouse following the hearings on Thursday. Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

In New York, well-known attorneys Karen Friedman Agnifilio and her husband, Marc Agnifilio, who has been representing Sean “Diddy” Combs, are teaming up to represent Mangione.

Unprecedented attention

Meanwhile, the attention that Mangione drew to Altoona — who got arrested after arriving here by bus from Pittsburgh about five days after the high-profile shooting — is beginning to diminish.

While an unprecedented amount of national and international media joined local media in filling Allegheny Street before daybreak Thursday — and led to a standing-room-only crowd in the courtroom — that amount was greatly diminished by early afternoon.

The interest in Mangione’s case, however, is likely to remain strong.

Curious onlookers watch law enforcement officers deliver Luigi Mangione to the Blair County Courthouse at 7:30 a.m. Thursday. Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

In notebook entries, he filled several pages expressing hostility toward the health insurance industry and wealthy executives in particular, based on the federal complaint filed Thursday.

The defendant, who has attracted online support and financial donations from people critical of the health care industry, also drew supporters who traveled to the courthouse on Thursday.

Andrea Aye, who drove six hours from northwest Ohio and stood outside the courthouse, said she wanted to draw attention to the challenges within the nation’s health care system. She carried a sign stating: “Luigi, the people hear you.”

“You have to make yourself poor to get health care,” Aye said. “Or you’ll die.”

Ashlyn Adami and Ethan Merrill, who wore green Luigi hats from the Super Mario Bros. franchise, drove from South Bend, Ind. — about eight hours away — to show their support for the defendant.

Both spoke of physical ailments and the problems they’ve encountered with health insurance.

“I’d rather have a CEO killer on the streets than another CEO who is going to deny our claims and kill us because we need health care,” Merrill said.

Ben Friedman of New York carried a sign outside the courthouse praising Mangione for bravery.

“He killed a guy who was killing a lot of people through health care decisions,” Friedman said. “I could never have done what he did, but he has much more courage than I do.”

Friedman also referred to Mangione as privileged in light of growing up in a prominent Maryland real estate family and graduating from an Ivy League college. But those are factors, he said, in his support for Mangione.

“It takes a privileged person like Luigi to do something like this to bring about change, because otherwise there is no change and no opportunity to bring about change,” Friedman said. “He did something important for the country.”

Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 814-946-7456.