By MICHAEL R. SISAK

NEW YORK (AP) — Luigi Mangione spoke out in court Friday against the prospect of back-to-back trials over the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, telling a judge: “It’s the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition.”

Mangione, 27, made the remarks as court officers escorted him out of the courtroom after a judge scheduled his state murder trial to begin June 8, three months before jury selection in his federal case.

Judge Gregory Carro, matter-of-fact in his decision after a lengthy discussion with prosecutors and defense lawyers at the bench, said the state trial could be delayed until Sept 8 if an appeal delays the federal trial.

Mangione’s lawyers objected to the June trial date, telling Carro that at that time, they’ll be consumed with preparing for the federal trial, which involves allegations that Mangione stalked Thompson before killing him.

“Mr. Mangione is being put in an untenable situation,” defense lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo said. “This is a tug-of-war between two different prosecution offices.”

“The defense will not be ready on June 8,” she added.

“Be ready,” Carro replied.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges, both of which carry the possibility of life in prison. Last week, the judge in the federal case ruled that prosecutors can’t seek the death penalty.

Wearing a tan jail suit, Mangione sat quietly at the defense table until his outburst at the end of the hearing.

Jury selection in the federal case is set for Sept. 8, followed by opening statements and testimony on Oct. 13.

As the trial calendar began to take shape, Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann sent a letter to Carro asking him to begin the New York trial on July 1. The prosecutor argued that the state’s interests “would be unfairly prejudiced by an unnecessary delay” until after the federal trial.

When Mangione was arrested, federal prosecutors said anticipated that the state trial would go first. Seidemann told Carro on Friday that Thompson’s family has also expressed a desire to see the state trial happen first.

“It appears the federal government has reneged on its agreement to let the state, which has done most of the work in this case, go first,” Carro said Friday.

Scheduling the state trial first could help Manhattan prosecutors avoid double jeopardy issues. Under New York law, the district attorney’s office could be barred from trying Mangione if his federal trial happens first.

The state’s double jeopardy protections kick in if a jury has been sworn in a prior prosecution, such as a federal case, or if that prosecution ends in a guilty plea. The cases involve different charges but the same alleged course of conduct.

Related Articles

Actor Timothy Busfield indicted on 4 counts of sexual contact with a child

The US said a Marine could not adopt an Afghan girl. Records show officials helped him get her

US births dropped last year, suggesting the 2024 uptick was short-lived

Colorado funeral home owner faces sentencing for abusing 189 bodies

Savannah Guthrie’s demand for mom’s ‘proof of life’ is complicated in this era of AI and deepfakes

Mangione isn’t due in court again in the state case until May, when Carro is expected to rule on a defense request to exclude certain evidence that prosecutors say connects Mangione to the killing.

Those items include a 9 mm handgun that prosecutors say matches the one used to kill Thompson and a notebook in which they say he described his intent to “wack” a health insurance executive.

Last week, Garnett ruled that prosecutors can use those items at that trial.

In September, Carro threw out state terrorism charges but kept the rest of the case, including an intentional murder charge.

Thompson, 50, was killed on Dec. 4, 2024, as he walked to a midtown Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference.

Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.

Mangione, a University of Pennsylvania graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico grand jury has indicted Timothy Busfield on four counts of criminal sexual contact with a child.

Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman announced the indictment Friday in a social media post.

Authorities had issued an arrest warrant for Busfield over allegations of misconduct from when he was working as a director on the set of the TV series “The Cleaning Lady.”

Busfield has denied the allegations. He turned himself in to authorities and later was released from jail.

Busfield is best known for appearances in “The West Wing,” “Field of Dreams” and “Thirtysomething.”

Larry Stein, an attorney for Busfield, did not comment on the sexual contact charge in the indictment but said the grand jury declined to endorse grooming charges sought by prosecutors.

He said in a statement that a detention hearing already “exposed fatal weaknesses in the state’s evidence — gaps that no amount of charging decisions can cure.”

Related Articles

Luigi Mangione speaks out in protest as judge sets state murder trial for June 8

The US said a Marine could not adopt an Afghan girl. Records show officials helped him get her

US births dropped last year, suggesting the 2024 uptick was short-lived

Colorado funeral home owner faces sentencing for abusing 189 bodies

Savannah Guthrie’s demand for mom’s ‘proof of life’ is complicated in this era of AI and deepfakes

By JESSE BEDAYN and MATTHEW BROWN

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — A Colorado funeral home owner who stashed 189 decomposing bodies in a building over four years and gave grieving families fake ashes will be sentenced Friday on corpse abuse charges.

Related Articles

Savannah Guthrie’s demand for mom’s ‘proof of life’ is complicated in this era of AI and deepfakes

Wall Street bounces back as tech stocks recover and bitcoin stops plunging

Accused militant is taken into custody in the deadly 2012 Benghazi attack, Justice Department says

With $48M in philanthropic backing, a division of USAID relaunches as nonprofit

Today in History: February 6, Monopoly replaces iron piece with the cat

Jon Hallford owned Return to Nature Funeral Home in Colorado Springs with his then-wife Carie. They pleaded guilty in December to nearly 200 counts of corpse abuse under an agreement with prosecutors.

Jon Hallford faces between 30 and 50 years in prison. Carie Hallford faces 25 to 35 years in prison at sentencing on April 24.

The Hallfords stored the bodies in a building in the small town of Penrose, south of Colorado Springs, from 2019 until 2023, when investigators responding to reports of a stench from the building discovered the corpses.

Bodies were found throughout the building, some stacked on top of each other, with swarms of bugs and decomposition fluid covering the floors, investigators said. The remains — including adults, infants and fetuses — were stored at room temperature. Investigators believe the Hallfords gave families dry concrete that mimicked ashes.

The bodies were identified over months with fingerprints, DNA and other methods.

Families learned the ashes they had been given, and then spread or kept at home, weren’t actually their loved ones’ remains. Many said it undid their grieving process, others had nightmares and struggled with guilt that they let their relatives down.

The funeral home owners also pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges after prosecutors said they cheated the government out of nearly $900,000 in pandemic-era small business aid.

Jon Hallford was sentenced to 20 years in prison in that case. He told the judge he opened Return to Nature to make a positive impact in people’s lives, “then everything got completely out of control, especially me.”

“I still hate myself for what I’ve done,” he said at his sentencing last June.

Carie Hallford’s federal sentencing is set for March 16.

Attorneys for the Hallfords did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

During the years they were stashing bodies, the Hallfords spent lavishly, according to court documents. That included purchasing a GMC Yukon and an Infiniti worth over $120,000 combined, along with $31,000 in cryptocurrency, luxury items from stores like Gucci and Tiffany & Co., and laser body sculpting.

One of the recovered bodies was that of a former Army sergeant first class who was thought to have been buried at a veterans’ cemetery, said FBI agent Andrew Cohen.

When investigators exhumed the wooden casket at the cemetery, they found the remains of a person of a different gender inside, he said. The veteran, who was not identified in court, was later given a funeral with full military honors at Pikes Peak National Cemetery, he said.

The corpse abuse revelations spurred changes to Colorado’s lax funeral home regulations.

The AP previously reported that the Hallfords missed tax payments, were evicted from one of their properties and were sued for unpaid bills, according to public records and interviews with people who worked with them.

In a rare decision, state District Judge Eric Bentley last year rejected previous plea agreements between the Hallfords and prosecutors that called for up to 20 years in prison. Family members of the deceased said the agreements were too lenient.

By DAVE SKRETTA, Associated Press

MILAN (AP) — Those mischievous Minions will have their Olympic moment after all.

Tomas-Llorenc Guarino Sabate obtained the final approval he needed for his music on Friday, allowing the Spanish figure skater to perform his short program — set to a medley from the animated comedy from Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment — when the men’s competition begins at the Milan Cortina Games on Tuesday night.

Sabate had been performing the fan-favorite program all season, thinking he had the proper approval through a system called ClicknClear to use four cuts of music Minions. Last week, Universal Studios asked for him to provide more details on the music Sabate was using and the Minions-inspired outfit that he had been wearing.

He was able to quickly get approval for two cuts of music, and Sabate obtained a third by reaching out directly to the artist, a fellow Spaniard. The hold up was the song “Freedom” by the American musician and producer Pharrell Williams.

Related Articles

Chock and Bates rock as reigning champ US leads team figure skating event at Milan Cortina Olympics

The Milan Cortina Olympics will start with a four-site and two-cauldron opening ceremony

Italy braces for Winter Olympics with high security and decree targeting violent protesters

Lindsey Vonn tests injured left knee in Olympic downhill training, pumps fist after successful run

Meet the Minnesotans competing in the 2026 Winter Olympics

That approval finally came Friday, about two hours before the Olympic figure skating program opened with the team event.

“I’m so happy to announce that we’ve done it! We’ve secured the licenses for all four songs, and I’ll be able to skate the Minions at the Olympic Games,” Sabate wrote on social media. “It hasn’t been an easy process, but the support of everyone who has followed my case has been key to keeping me motivated and optimistic these past few days.”

At one point, Sabate’s situation had grown so dire that he began practicing his Bee Gee-inspired short program from last year. But as news of his plight came out, and he began to get approval for some of the music, his hopes of performing Minions began to grow.

He even practiced the program, which opens with peels of laughter from the characters, during an early session Thursday. By the next morning, the Royal Spanish Ice Sports Federation announced that the copyright issue had been resolved.

“I want to thank ClickClear and the RFEDH, as well as Universal Pictures, Pharrell Williams, Sony Music and Juan Alcaraz for managing the rights in such a short time so I can perform my program in Milan,” Sabate said.

The copyright issue has become a big problem in figure skating, where for years skaters could only use music without words, usually considered part of the public domain. But when the rules changed in 2014, and more modern music began to be used in competition, some artists began to object to their work being used without the proper permission.

Two-time world medalist Loena Hendrickx of Belgium also had copyright issues ahead of the Olympics.

The Belgian had been performing her short program to “Ashes” by Celine Dion from the film “Deadpool 2.” But after the European championships last month, her brother and coach, Jorik Hendrickx, and choreographer Adam Solya became concerned that the music would not be approved for the Olympics, and they decided to change the soundtrack at the last minute.

Hendrickx is now performing a slightly modified program to “I Surrender,” another song by Dion, which has the same rhythm and feel as “Ashes.” She was able to obtain permission for that piece because it is part of ClicknClear’s catalogue of licenses.

The 26-year-old Sabate is not considered a medal contender at the Olympics; he was 20th at the world championships last year. But after the past week, he figures to have plenty of support when he brings the Minions with him Tuesday night.

“Right now, I just want to give my all on the ice and perform a program worthy of the love I’ve received from around the world,” Sabate said. “I’m thrilled by the love that a small skater from a small federation has received.”