Federal prosecutors have denied allegations that they intentionally eavesdropped on jailhouse phone calls between alleged Midtown assassin Luigi Mangione and his legal team, saying in a court filing Monday that any recordings of privileged conversations were obtained inadvertently and never listened to by the prosecution.
In a letter filed April 29 with Judge Margaret Garnett, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York stated that neither federal nor state prosecutors listened live to any conversations between Mangione and his attorneys.
Prosecutors initially said a paralegal accidentally began listening to one call recording between Mangione and his lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, but immediately stopped upon realizing it was a conversation with an attorney. However, in a correction filed April 30, they said the paralegal actually listened to the entire call,” then subsequently informed DANY prosecutors about
the identities of the people with whom the defendant spoke.”
“No one at DANY or the Government ‘eavesdropped’ on the defendant on a live basis,” the letter stated. “No member of the federal prosecution team has listened to any recording of any attorney call, and the Government has segregated all recordings of these attorney calls so that they cannot be accessed further.”
Mangione, 26, pleaded not guilty to federal charges related to the December 2024 shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson during an arraignment on April 25. Federal prosecutors previously announced their intention to seek the death penalty against Mangione should he be convicted of murder through the use of a firearm. He also previously pleaded not guilty to state charges.
The letter was filed in response to concerns what Friedman Agnifilo raised at Friday’s arraignment hearing; she told Judge Garnett that state prosecutors had informed her they had been “eavesdropping on all of Mr. Mangione’s calls,” including at least one with her, calling the breach “inadvertent.”
Friedman Agnifilo emphasized that the call should have been recognized as privileged and said it was concerning that federal prosecutors shared the recording. She urged the judge to ensure that no further attorney-client communications are recorded or shared with the Manhattan DA’s Office or the U.S. Attorney’s Office, prompting Judge Garnett to request a detailed account from prosecutors on measures being taken to safeguard Mangione’s privileged communications.
Writing to Judge Garnett, federal prosecutors explained that the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, where Mangione is detained, routinely records inmate calls made through the standard phone system, Trufone. These recordings include calls to attorneys unless the attorney’s number is “properly registered” to ensure confidentiality.
“A number of recordings of calls between the defendant and his counsel were provided by the Metropolitan Detention Center to the Government — and by the Government to DANY — because the defendant spoke to his counsel on a recorded and monitored jail line (not a line specially designated for attorney calls) and with counsel using a telephone number that was not identified as belonging to counsel (thus evading MDC’s process for filtering attorney calls before providing them to the Government),” the letter stated.
Federal prosecutors requested two sets of recorded jail calls from the MDC and shared them with the DANY. One of the recordings included a call between Mangione and Friedman Agnifilo, but her phone number had not been listed as an attorney contact in the jail’s system.
While reviewing the set, a paralegal at the DA’s office listened to the entire call before flagging it as privileged, and alerting both offices, prosecutors said, adding that no one else listened to any attorney calls.
After discovering the issue, the government checked the second batch of recordings and found additional calls involving Agnifilo’s number. Out of caution, prosecutors said they immediately segregated the entire set to prevent further access and asked DANY to do the same. They plan to request a filtered version later, once defense counsel confirms all attorney phone numbers are properly flagged in the jail system.
To prevent future problems, prosecutors reminded defense lawyers to avoid using recorded lines like Trufone and instead use unmonitored options already available at the jail for confidential legal calls.
Lead prosecutor in the case, Dominic Gentile, told Judge Garnett on Friday that it was the first time hearing of the issue, but in the April 29 letter, prosecutors apologized for the oversight.
They said that on April 22, DANY notified one member of the prosecution team at the Government about the issue, “but the information was not communicated to the rest of the prosecution team, including the speaker on the record, prior to arraignment.”
