I think we all can guess Mark is an informal advisor to the Agnifilos on this case.

This is a fascinating discussion about potential theories about the EED defence and how it could work without incriminating him in the fed trial.

One things is for sure: this will not be a normal and regular trial. It could potentially become a once in a lifetime referendum on corporate greed If they proceed with EED.

This is an article that includes an interview with a director who filmed Luigi and two of his classmates at Gilman back in 2014 for a documentary that was never released. The full article is google translated below:

"Abstract: Documentary director Wang Yang re-examined footage from 2014 and discovered that Luigi, the American teenager featured on the film, was the suspect in the 2024 shooting of the CEO of the U.S. Healthcare Corporation. The article traces the divergent fates of three teenagers over the past 12 years: Luigi rebelled violently against the healthcare system, his friend James became a Wall Street financial elite, and the Chinese teenager Maisheng returned to his rural hometown [...]"

Wang Yang never imagined that he would be so close to a murderer.

Just after the start of spring in 2026, in a coffee shop in Xi'an, an old friend pushed his phone in front of him. On the screen was a photo of a young man imprisoned in late 2024 that had shocked the world. The young man in the photo looked unusually calm, even with a hint of relief.

“Do you remember that kid named Luigi Mangione? The boy who showed you his robotics lab at Gilman High School?” The old friend’s expression was complicated. He paused for a moment. “That’s him. The assassin who shot and killed the insurance company CEO in Manhattan two years ago.”

Wang Yang stood frozen in place.

Of course he remembered Luigi. As a documentary filmmaker, he started filming the documentary "Dreams of Youth" in 2014, recording segments of several 16-year-old boys in the context of Chinese and American education, including Luigi. Later, for various reasons, the film was never broadcast, and that memory has remained on that hard drive labeled "2014 Baltimore".

During the 10 years that Wang Yang was "out of memory," Luigi went to the other extreme.

It was the morning of December 4, 2024, outside the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan. According to police reports, the assassin ambushed Brian Robert Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the largest health insurance company in the United States. Three words were engraved on the bullet casings found at the scene: “Deny,” “Defend,” and “Depose.” This was clearly an allusion to a 2010 book criticizing the insurance industry. In the United States, insurance critics often use these three words to summarize a claims logic that policyholders feel powerless: first, delay; then, denial; and finally, continued drain on individuals through litigation and defense.

Five days later, 26-year-old suspect Luigi Mangioni was arrested at a McDonald's in Altuna, Pennsylvania. At the time of his arrest, his backpack contained the 3D-printed handgun used to shoot Thompson, a silencer, fake identification, and a three-page handwritten document. In the document, he apologized for the "conflict and harm" he had caused, but made it clear that "these parasites deserved it."

As his identity was revealed, more information surfaced. Luigi comes from a prominent Italian-American family in Maryland, whose family has a long history of real estate, resorts, and golf businesses; he is a distinguished graduate of Gilman School, a private boys' school in Baltimore, and then went on to study computer science at the Ivy League university, the University of Pennsylvania.

Currently, Luigi remains in custody at a federal detention center in Brooklyn, New York. In January 2026, a judge dismissed two charges against Luigi: illegal possession of a firearm and murder, a charge that could carry the death penalty—meaning he will not face the death penalty but could be imprisoned for life. According to the latest news, the federal trial has been postponed to January 2027.

On one side, there was murder, pursuit, and trial; on the other, an ongoing debate surrounding the healthcare system, class anger, and elite rebellion. Some saw Luigi as an extreme rebel against the healthcare system, calling him a "modern-day Robin Hood"; others insisted it was nothing more than a violent crime that should not be justified. During the court hearings, several of his supporters appeared outside the courthouse, one dressed as a villain from the video game Super Mario Bros., holding a sign that read "Patients die, profits rise," while another woman wore a sash that read "Release Luigi."

One commentator remarked, "He should have been the wolf sitting on Wall Street, devouring people, but instead he became the one pulling out the fangs of the sheep."

In Wang Yang's memory, Luigi was simply a 16-year-old boy wearing a Ralph Lauren shirt, exuding the confidence and reserve typical of an Ivy League prospective student. He smiled at the camera, with the azure sky of Baltimore in the background.

“In the lost decade, we lost our youth just like that,” Wang Yang wrote on social media.

It was this post that led us to him. To be honest, since Luigi wasn't the main character in Wang Yang's film back then, he didn't have much direct contact with Luigi. But as a director, Wang Yang is used to scrutinizing a person's expression through the viewfinder, and this professional instinct allowed him to re-examine that boy who had only briefly appeared on the edge of the lens 12 years later.

In the two conversations, Wang Yang talked about the documentary that was never broadcast, and the three boys he briefly met in the film. Among them, Luigi was involved in the most intense violence and evil; his friend James followed the most standard path and became a well-paid financial elite; and the boy from Huining, Gansu, who was taken by Wang Yang to the United States for an exchange program, eventually returned to his starting point by the gravity of life after going around in circles.

The following is Wang Yang's account:

He was like a ghost.

"When I got home, I reopened that hard drive and stared at the footage for an entire afternoon.

To be honest, Luigi wasn't the main character in my film in Baltimore in 2014. My camera was following two other children from very different backgrounds: one was James, a Chinese-American boy whose mother was the old friend I had recently met at the coffee shop; the other was Maisheng, a student I had brought from the mountains of Huining, Gansu.

At the time, I was living at James's house, and every day I would take my camera and follow a group of teenagers to and from school to film documentaries.

It was during our recent trip to Xi'an that we started talking about Baltimore again, about the situation of those kids, and it was then that James's mother pushed the phone towards me. Actually, I had seen his name in the news over the past year, and even knew he went to high school in Baltimore. At the time, I thought it was a coincidence and never imagined it could be the boy I had photographed.

I opened that hard drive again, wanting to confirm whether I had actually filmed him back then, and how much of the footage I had. But when I reviewed the footage again, I found that he was like a ghost, never leaving the camera's view.

He seemed very active, appearing in the lab, in the robotics group, in the cafeteria, and in many of the peripheral scenes I would have otherwise only glanced at. James later told me that Luigi was a very good friend of his; his mother also mentioned to me that they were the ones who got along the best back then.

In one screenshot from that time, Luigi stood leaning over a lab bench, dressed in typical American elite student attire—a shirt, tie, and a dark gray half-zip jacket with the Virginia Wesleyan logo emblazoned on the chest. He was slender, with a straight nose, prominent brow bones, and his gaze was focused intently on the mechanical structure in his hands. His lips were slightly pursed, and his expression was calm and serious. One hand was supporting the unfinished robot car, while the other was adjusting metal parts. Scattered on the table were blue storage boxes, a laptop, and tangled wires and small parts, with several students surrounding him.

When I saw this picture, it immediately came to mind—yes, it was him, that kid. Back then, the world seemed flat. The afterglow of the Obama era hadn't faded, the Silicon Valley tech myth was at its peak, and people believed that technology could solve poverty and education could eliminate barriers. Luigi, in front of the camera, talked about his robot algorithm, his eyes clear.

Later, in the news, I saw that he had used a 3D printer to make that gun with a silencer. This "technological closure" spanning 10 years is what chills me the most—the quiet and focused energy he once used to explore the world ultimately became the tool he used to kill with precision.

Looking back, I think Luigi's interactions with his classmates in class had a certain "appropriate distance." The robotics group course was open-ended; the teacher simply answered students' questions from the sidelines, while the students were divided into different groups to program and assemble robots. On camera, Luigi appeared noticeably more mature than other children, less outgoing. When other children occasionally played around, he would stand quietly, using a few words to bring the situation back on track.

He wasn't the type to actively seek the center of attention; he didn't act, nor did he deliberately push his way forward. But just spending a moment in that space revealed his weight. He was the leader of the robotics team, and he spearheaded many of their endeavors. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried immense authority. When he spoke, people stopped to listen; he didn't need to raise his voice—his presence emanated naturally. That authority didn't stem from violence or wealth, but from a certainty of "I possess the truth."

This is certainly related to his upbringing. Luigi's family runs real estate and golf courses in Maryland, and he is the quintessential child raised by old money. I later learned that he graduated first in his class and gave a speech as a representative of the outstanding graduates. At the commencement ceremony, Luigi said, "Come up with new ideas and challenge the world around you."

But because he wasn't the main character in my documentary, I didn't specifically film scenes about him. If you ask me now whether I noticed anything unusual about him back then, I would say no, really no. At least at the time, he seemed like just a very steady and excellent ordinary teenager.

Folding the boy

After learning that Luigi, the man I photographed, was the murderer, I began to reflect on the elite education system in the United States.

In Huining, children fought for "survival"; at Gilman, they fought for "excellence." Luigi was among the best of these "excellent" individuals. His four years at the University of Pennsylvania coincided with a period of complete disintegration of American social consensus. He watched as the elite class around him used financial instruments and the healthcare system to squeeze the last remaining value from the lower classes like a pump.

If the boy from Huining's suffering stemmed from the exhaustion of "wanting but not getting," then Luigi's suffering came from the disillusionment of "knowing." His top-tier education, perhaps in essence, taught him how to become a more efficient and elegant predator. When he saw UnitedHealth Group refuse to pay out to the dying through complex algorithms, while its CEO received hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation, the morality cultivated by his elite education was completely ignited. In Baltimore, education endowed people with the highest intelligence and critical thinking, but failed to give them a normal heart capable of accepting the imperfections of the world.

What kind of life do you want to live?

If I met Luigi again now, I would like to ask him a very simple question, "What kind of life do you want to live?" Or even simpler, "What is your dream?"

At 16, he spoke with clear eyes about his robot algorithms on camera. He must have had dreams back then. I wonder if those dreams still exist, and when they changed shape. Similarly, I want to know James's dreams, about the life he wants. Maybe I'll ask James next time we meet.

Looking back today, I feel that what truly remains of "The Dream of Youth" is not just the contrast between Chinese and American education, nor simply the differences between Huining and Baltimore, or between a door and a wall. More importantly, it's about where these three teenagers ended up.

Luigi was, of course, the most conspicuous one.

Of all the kids, he was the least likely to cause trouble. His family background, school, abilities, and demeanor—everything suggested he was destined for a bright future. Yet, he was the one who went to the extremes and lost control. That's why this incident had such a profound impact on me.