GG81: Luigi Mangione's Federal Guilty Plea, with Liz Skeen

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:26 Thomas: Me Me for Now, but in a moment, I'm going to be joined by New York defense attorney Liz Skeen. Sure you all remember Liz from the Trump trial and from other previous updates on various things. Liz is great. I love Liz and I love that about these shows with Matt and Liz, I love having lawyers with real on the ground experience who are doing the real work of defending the most vulnerable in our society. I seriously love that about our shows. I feel like the corporate lawyers and the lawyers for the privileged are overrepresented in the podcast space. Was just thinking of that as I was editing this Lizasode. Let's talk about Luigi Mangione. You probably saw he pled guilty to federal charges. Here's the thing. I'm really glad we have Liz for this. You You might have heard they did a daily on this. I got to tell you, after talking to Liz, who is an actual New York defense attorney, as I said, I feel differently than I did from that New York Times daily coverage. So I just want to throw that in there in case this is something you thought, oh, I've already heard coverage on this. My impression is that Liz has a bit of a different view on how this is likely to go. Excited to bring this to you. We're going to take our usual break. Hey, support the show, patreon .com slash gavel pod. This show is back on the chunk system if you didn't hear. So we've got a lot of releases coming for you in a short amount of time on Patreon. They'll all come for you in that one big chunk. Normies, we'll space them out a bit more. Just a little perk we can offer to patrons at patreon .com slash gavelpod. So thank you so much for listening and supporting. We'll take a break and then we'll be on with Liz Skeen get all the info about Luigi Mangione and his guilty plea and what's going on there.

0:02:16 Thomas: I'm joined by Liz Skeen. How's it going, Liz?

0:02:21 Liz: It's so good to be back here. Doing well, having a hot and humid and rainy New York summer.

0:02:29 Thomas: Sounds kind of gross, honestly.

0:02:32 Liz: Pretty gross. I mean, we've had just a lot of days of, I mean full on pretty significant street flooding, including today. And I would say it's been a little hard to get into summer because the weather's been so erratic and and kind of not classically nice summer days, but that may be the new normal.

0:02:50 Thomas: Well, at least you've got the world's best mayor. I am jealous. I, for one, am jealous!

0:02:57 Liz: We absolutely do have the world's best mayor. And we also, I don't know if you know that there was a team called the Knicks that did something pretty cool a couple months ago. So we've got that. I mean, honestly, it's weather aside, it has actually been a terrific New York summer, you weather side and sort of the general, you know, downfall of society. Zoran is great. So we've got that. And, you know, Luigi's in town many days, right right, by the courthouse that I am.

0:03:22 Thomas: That's It's going to say it's the only downside is the dream is dead. They dream of a Luigi trial or of anything like that. I guess is dead with a guilty plea here.

0:03:34 Liz: Is. I think it's pretty much dead. Yeah.

0:03:36 Thomas: But you've taught us so much about this that I felt like I had a good guess as to what was going on. Like it seemed like because what I saw and then, you know, you can you can fill us in. But I saw he pleaded guilty to the something around the federal charges. I was like, oh, is this what Liz was telling us? Was this to try to get because I know the whole thing was the state's double jeopardy protection is way better. So if he does the federal first, then maybe he's protecting himself against some sort of number of state charges. Is that what was going on at all?

0:04:05 Liz: That's a fantastic summary of what's happening there. And we're definitely gonna crack on into the details. But that's what he was doing there is he wanted to plead guilty to the federal charges in order to make sure that the state wasn't able to move ahead first, because it's a really lopsided double jeopardy protection on the federal side. Luigi were convicted of state charges for killing Brian Thompson, the former CEO of United, if he were to be convicted in New York, the feds could just crack on and prosecute him. However, if he were to be convicted by the feds first, by the federal prosecutors, New York State could not just crack on and prosecuted him. Because New York state has both in terms of how it interprets its constitution and in terms its actual statutory law, a much stronger jeopardy clause than we do at the federal level.

0:05:00 Thomas: That's what I guessed. And I don't. Is that going to work, though? And also, what exactly is he pleading guilty to? I know we've got a lot to catch up on, so I'm sure you're going to take us all through it.

0:05:10 Liz: We've got a ton to catch on uh in terms of uh what happened was we saw luigi uh week it plea guilty to the two remaining federal charges that he has uh I say the two reminding federal charges let's go back and do a little primer as to what Luigi was charged with federally. His federal charges are a little interesting. He was charged in the first charge he has is interstate travel for the purpose of stalking Brian Thompson, causing his death. Count is use of electronic communication systems for the purposes of stalking Brian Thompson causing his death. Of these, he can face life without parole for in terms of the federal sentencing. But both of those counts three and four of the Federal indictment, his lawyers got dismissed.

0:06:04 Liz: And this was a pretty big decision on the federal level. So what they they managed to get the death penalty eligible eligible charges in the federal indictment dismissed.

0:06:14 Thomas: Huh. This is the terrorism stuff or whatever? Oh, oh

0:06:17 Liz: Actually on the state side. It was a crime with a predicate. So it was the murder of Brian Thompson through using a firearm and in relation to the stalking crimes that are charged and counts one and two. And then count four is use of a firearm in relation to the stalking crimes and counts 1 and 2. In order to get counts 3 and 4, so the murder charge and the use of the firearm charge, which are combined, you have to find that the stalking charges happen.

0:06:51 Liz: Stalking had to be considered to be a crime of violence under the federal definition. Wrote a pretty long decision here, but the current scope of interpreting a crime to interpret whether or not it counts as a crime of violence is basically looking at like the least worst version that something could be and saying like in the hypothetical, right. Not, not like as applied to Luigi's particular case, because obviously this is violent. Right. So like in the sort of hypothetical stalking, isn't necessarily violent, right? Like

0:06:57 Thomas: That's right, yeah, that's right, okay yeah,

0:07:28 Liz: that'S basically what happened there. It was a pretty, um. So, you Know, the federal judge was like, yeah, sorry. Um, is not a crime of violence. So I have to dismiss, um, three and four because it depends on them being in order. It's, you know, in order to get this death penalty, it depends on stalking being a crime or violence. It is a pretty complicated decision.

0:07:44 Thomas: Yeah that's because yeah, I think you took us through some of that at the time, Right. Because it's for one, it's not there's no federal like murder law per se. So it had to use that was the way to get it to be. The more serious thing was like using the federal stalking charges in order to like commit the crime of murder, which is the state crime or whatever. Is that what kind of what it was?

0:08:06 Liz: Was, it was to get it up to death penalty level, right? You had to kind of find something aggravating to get into death penalty. And so that is kind of why you found yourself in this situation, uh, other reasons. And so, yeah, so, you know, these, you know, charges three and four get knocked out a couple months ago. And so that leaves them with one and two, which, as I say, um, are significant in the sense that, um. Opposed to being death penalty eligible that, you know, their life without without which not great, but it's better than the death penalty. So that's kind of where you find yourselves on the federal side. Then let's go over to the New York State side and talk about where you find yourselves. New York state side, they also succeed in getting a couple of charges knocked out. Even before I get into this, I think it's worth noting that not like it's so easy to just get charges knocked out, like,

0:08:09 Thomas: Yeah yeah

0:08:54 Liz: You Know, my standard indicted cases, it doesn't happen that often. You know, why is it happening here? I think for two reasons. Ends. The first one is the one that like everyone's going to predict is like, okay, well, Luigi has like spent a lot of money on pretty good lawyers. Okay. Yeah. We all know that. All right. Sure. The second one is, you know, federal prosecutors and state prosecutors in a very press prominent case, I think are likely to potentially overcharge the case and charge certain theories that are a little questionable, right? Like, you Know, it's go big or go out. Right. So I just, I Think it's notable. Like they're going to try, you you know, sometimes I think there's a theory, you know sometimes there's sort of arguments that prosecutors can be very conservative and they're not sort of putting in charges they don't feel like they can't prove. And I think that applies sometimes. But I think in this case, you know, the feds wanted to say they were seeking the death penalty. And in New York, I'll get about to get to the New York counts got dropped off. In New York you know we talked about this a while ago, but he was charged charged, um, murder in the first degree and then murder as a crime of terror, murder in the second degree as a prime of

0:09:59 Liz: Terrorism. And why did that happen? York's murder in the first -degree charge is not like a normal murder one in like other states, right? When you hear murder one on TV or something, you know, this like intentional murder, you know, planned murder, dah, dah. New York murder one is, it's basically like it's murder with some sort of aggravator, right? So like you killed a police officer or you tortured someone to death, like very, you know, it'S, itS not just like intentional murder. So that's murder one. And then murder two, um, in New York is a murder in the second degree is normally the kind of normal intentional murder here. They also charged him. The reason they got murder one in Newark is they alleged that he intentionally caused Brian death as an act of terrorism. Then they also charged him murder too as a crime of terrorism, which is like an aggravated form of murder too. It's almost interchangeable. Then again, they were trying to say that he was doing this murder as an active terrorism, Which is to say, both those charges, they get dismissed pretty early on judge in the New York State case, right? Because they're both, again, these are like really really tenuous theory. Like this is not like in order for something to be terrorism under New York law, like it has to be aimed at like a broad group of people. And as many CEOs are walking around, you know, New York and Manhattan, it's, it'S not fair to really say that killing, it just, it really straight, it''s a really strange theory. Uh,

0:11:22 Liz: And they tried that Judge Caro was like, it's out. So that left him with regular murder two.

0:11:22 Thomas: Regular

0:11:29 Liz: So not like an aggravated, So just the intentional killing of a man. Right.

0:11:29 Thomas: Old murder well was there like while incredibly beautiful though is that part of it or no murder while hot yeah I don't know what that changes but they should mention like why

0:11:38 Liz: I think all of the charges should really end with I you know if if hot were a defense. Well I won't end that thought. Yeah that it was that and then a couple of different criminal possession of a weapon charges. So for the possession of the gun and then the possession of the ammunition. Then they also charged him with a criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree. And that's because apparently he was carrying around a forged New Jersey driver's license.

0:12:09 Liz: So that's kind of what he gets charged with in New York. Of the ammunition charges gets knocked out because that evidence gets suppressed in New York. It doesn't get suppressed in, on the federal side because New York has a different understanding of like, it's sort of this closed container rule, gokey. So New York, if you're kind of searching a closed container, there's like a much higher sort of threshold in terms of doing the search. Right. What happens. So, you New York they're still left with all these, these charges that are, um. There's still left that said with the regular old murder in the second degree charge. That's kind of where we find ourselves. So let's talk about a little bit about what happens in New York for Luigi in June, because this is kind of a funny moment.

0:12:10 Thomas: I missed that one right hmm right

0:12:49 Liz: Don't know if people saw that they, that he withdrew. There were some articles about this but luigi back in june in his new york case he withdraws psych defense um so originally and I think we talked a little bit about this in like one of the earliest luigi prop podcasts in the new yark case one ofthe defenses there's a possible affirmative defense in New York state to, murder in the second degree. Um, called, uh, um. Extreme emotional disturbance. That's because New York doesn't have the same sort of manslaughter, like premeditated versus kind of like, like, you passion fashion distinction, right? It just doesn't exist in New York. Instead, we have this extreme emotional disturbance defense. And what you can do is you can use this defense to get your murder the second degree bumped down to a manslaughter. Does that actually mean? You get manslaughter in Newark, that's a B violent felony. And that means you could get a a range of five to 25 years in prison. Whereas murder in the second degree, you're facing life. In order to do this defense, you have to submit, it's called psych notice. So you haveto inform the prosecutor that you're going to be using this particular defense. A pretty serious thing that you havetodo in terms of informing the prosecutor, prosecutor because it allows them to end up getting this sort of court appointed psychiatrist who evaluates both you, who evaluats you and the report gets shared. You know, back on, and I think it's worth noting because I think the defense actually kind of like was a little clumsy here or maybe sort of messed up a little bit in

0:14:33 Liz: Sense, it was just a little weird because, you You know, on June 17th, you know, it comes out that the defense lawyers are saying, you that he's going to use this extreme emotional disturbance defense. And this is a Wednesday. Prosecutor with Danny, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, I call it Danny, say that the offense team has stonewalled him. They haven't disclosed who they're planning to call as an expert witness. And Judge Caro says, you all need to hand over that information. Information and the, he says specifically, quote unquote, the the, prosecutors need to know what malady it is that this defendant suffers from. That's on a Wednesday. On a Thursday, you Know, when they realize they're going to have to like actually actually do some real like disclosure here and then also potentially face, um, psychiatrist to evaluate, like they don't get to pick, to evaluate Luigi and all these sort of public reports and things like that. Day later, they withdraw this. And they say, actually, we're not filing psych notes. Notice, we are not going to use this extreme emotional disturbance defense. Following that, there's a bunch of articles that say, you people are kind of flummoxed, like as to what he's going to do in Manhattan. Because this was like the one defense that he had, right? Which is, again, you do have to give a lot of information up. You have to submit yourself to having a psychiatrist examination. You have to submit to these things are going to be public. Were saying, can we please not put them on the public docket? Can we seal them? But that's it. It's actually not, I pulled up some of the phrasing of the defense. It's actually a very cool defense if you can get it to work for you. What it does is Because of, it's you know, it sort of tracks this sort of thing where it says, remember, it is not the act of killing that must be supported by a reasonable explanation or excuse. It is the extreme emotional disturbance for which there must be a reasonable explaination or excuse, excuse. I were his defense lawyers, I would have, you know, tried to find some sort of psychiatrist to the defense side, to say that, talk about kind of like the sort of psychosis that extreme pain could put you through, right? Would be sort of what I would have argued. It's also going to be very easy to find a lot of people on the other side to say, that's horseshit. Know, I mean, I'm not going to like get into the merits of, I'm not a clinician, but that would be the idea of this. And it's, you know, it's affirmative defense that the the, defense has prove. So that means you have, they have to submit evidence. They cannot say they haveと provide the burden of proof that, um, must have been an explanation or excuse for extreme emotional disturbance that was reasonable. The reasonableness of that explanation or excuse must be determined from the viewpoint of a person in the defendant's situation under the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be. That's really good language. That

0:17:20 Liz: Being said, it's still hard.

0:17:22 Thomas: But it sort of feels like I thought he was pulling out of the stops like what does he have to lose he I guess what is he crowdfunded lawyers or something he has it seems to have like like good attorneys yeah

0:17:34 Liz: And so I'm not sure kind of what... There's sort of a weird fumble there. I don'T know how on a Wednesday they're saying to the judge, we're going to do this extreme emotional disturbance defense. The judge yells at them being like, you know, you're goingto have to get me all this information, which by the way, is in the statute. Like everybody knows this, right? Not only that, but you have to file, if you're gonna, it's called psych notice. You have to file psych notice, something like, 30 it''s days after the original like arraignment. So it's very close in time. Like they were well past that period. You're allowed to get extra time, him, but, for a good reason, but it's, I don't understand how on one hand they're saying, okay, Wednesday, this is the defense we're going to go for. Like we're going to do this extreme emotion, emotional disturbance. Judge yells at them, get them all this information, get this all to be expected. And Thursday they're like, just kidding. We're withdrawing. Was a little, I dunno. I mean like something happened there. It was like a little clumsy and weird. I think it's worth talking about kind of, like, looking at your options here, right? The federal side, if he goes to trial, the worst thing that happens to him is life without parole, right,

0:18:35 Liz: Yeah. So worst thing that happens after trial is life without parole. Worst thing that happened if you plead guilty is life with out parole. So, you in some of the respects, if like you're sort of like a dice roller, you're like, well, maybe we should go to trial, right. Because like it's the same worst thing. On the state side, the worst thing that, you know, potentially happens is also life without parole, or, right? And then, you Know, the best thing that happens is you get this kind of manslaughter. Get manslaughter and you get somewhere between five and 25 years. Being realistic, a judge will probably give you 25. what I think they kind of said was they they kind of did the conservative move, which was like, we're we'm not going to hang a jury in the federal court. We're not gonna get a not guilty in federal court, like we're just not, right. Probably if we go to trial, we will get life without parole, because the judge is going to sort of, they'll make arguments that this is someone who refused to take responsibility. Like there is like a trial tax, right? And there is a sort of argument You you could be made and certainly like would impact this sort of judge, this idea of being like, well, he didn't take responsibility and we had to, you Know, this person testified and we saw this and look how we had to bring up, you effort, do this whole trial, whereas on the other side, if you just please guilty, you can say judge, he took responsibility, he should be rewarded for taking responsibility and pleading guilty, stuff like that. That sounds sort of like, I think sometimes when I describe it, it sounds almost pedantic and silly, but this stuff really matters.

0:18:34 Thomas: Point right yeah yeah really

0:20:00 Liz: So I think what they figured was, let's just plead guilty in federal court. We'll try to get something, anything less than life without parole. And what we'll do is, by doing that, we're going to basically knock out the New York charges. So we won't even have to deal with New York. Like, definitely a conservative move, but it's also, it's probably a prudent move. I

0:20:16 Thomas: Is it conservative because what if you plead guilty to this and then it doesn't work somehow to knock out the state charges because couldn't the state I imagine the the state has some amount of argument in terms of like, oh, these are different charges or different, you know, don't they have some argument there? Because really?

0:20:38 Liz: Don't think they have much. And it's worth talking about that. Dug I down to

0:20:41 Thomas: Well, this is great because I think I heard on a, gosh, it was at the Daily, a major podcast. I don't think it was the Daily. It might've been the Slate one, but the there seemed to think it was pretty risky when it came to that. And I'm glad because I feel like, you've more direct experience in this and direct expertise. I'd be curious, you like maybe that expert, I don't know what credentials their were, but I'd Be very interested to hear a differing view on that.

0:21:05 Liz: Re -read the statute and I looked at, you what he pled guilty. I don'T think so. So New York defines this, as jeopardies in our constitution, but it's defined also, and it's sort of further extrapolated in the criminal procedure law in New York. So in Criminal Procedure Law, they say, and its CPL, if people want to look it up, Article 40 .20, Subsection 2, it says, a person may not be separately prosecuted for two offenses based on the same act or criminal transaction. Let's not talk about, let's go to the words criminal transaction because those are really key. The same act or criminal transition. Criminal transaction is also defined in the CPL and that's in 40 .10 subsection two. And it says two offenses, you they're part of the same criminal transaction for Double Jeopardy if they are so closely related and connected in point of time and circumstances of commission to constitute a single criminal incident, or they're so closely related in criminal purpose or objective as to constitute elements or integral parts of a single criminal venture.

0:22:19 Thomas: So if I was thinking for the other side, I'd BE like, all right, well, if he pleaded guilty to the stalking thing, is they're going to try to say like, if that's if different than actually shooting and killing him, maybe causing his death. Oh yeah. True.

0:22:29 Liz: I mean, but it's interstate travel for the purpose of stalking Brian Thompson, causing his death, you And electronic communication systems for the purposes of stalkging Brian Thompson causing his death. Right. I think the key thing is you got to get to is it's not just stalking, right. It's stalking causing his debt. And, and I just think if you go back to this language language so closely related and connected in point of time and circumstances of commission as to constitute a single criminal act, fine, stalking causing his death.

0:23:02 Thomas: Yeah. He can't die twice for two different reasons. It's like, that is kind of the same. Interesting.

0:23:07 Liz: It's just not, it's kind of the same, right?

0:23:10 Thomas: Yeah. Huh. That's, that makes more sense. Cause it felt a little risky to me, just not, you kind of covered this last time a little bit, but I still felt like, geez, are they really, if he's only pleading guilty to stalking, it felt more like that could could be a different thing but as you put it there I mean it's not just stalking

0:23:28 Liz: Think its going to really tough for them. Think that New York State is going to write a very long, complicated brief. Prosecutor's there explaining why stalking causing death is totally different than murder, but it's the same transaction, right? You didn't kill him twice. That's why it comes down to. And I think that the defense is going to have the benefit of just saying like, this is a simple exercise. What's the criminal transaction we're looking at here. So closely related and connected in time? These two things, you it's I think they have a very very strong argument. Think where you could see him them saying, OK, fine, you these are not double jeopardy is potentially on the criminal weapon charges. Just aren't going to be those are going to to be subsumed. Those are just not going to be too long. Even if you stacked all... Those are going to being... I think they would be likely to run consecutive to each other based on New York sentencing law. And I think the max you'd be facing for those would be maybe seven years or something. So maybe you could argue... I would argue maybe, okay, when he had a gun on him, him and ammunition on him when he was up at the hostel. That is a sort of different criminal. I mean, maybe you could try to argue that or trying kind of at a different point in time or something. I'm not really like that would be maybe the argument or that like, you not a single sort of criminal criminal transaction that's just totally his. I don't know. I would try to make that sort of argument maybe. So maybe you'll see that they can sort of separate out those. But I don't see I don'T see how I think they made the correct decision on this one. Just Just going just going the statutes, not even like a good case, like the statute supports them so well.

0:25:20 Thomas: Yeah because even that so the even the gun stuff I feel like it's like yeah he had the guns to do this crime though like that was still that crime yeah so you think that'll do you think the weapons charges part you're saying that might be a possible way that the state could get him but are but you thinking that's not really that likely?

0:25:27 Liz: Yeah, I agree. Possibly. But it's just it's it's so little time, relatively speaking, based on what he's facing on the federal side. Like, I wouldn't be too worried about that.

0:25:46 Thomas: What is he facing on the federal side? I think you kind of mentioned it, but you said he was trying to get something less than, you life, I guess it is. What do you think he's likely, or maybe you said 25 is what he's likely to get. Is that true?

0:25:58 Liz: Actually, I didn't say that. I didn'T make a prediction there. It's really hard to say.

0:26:01 Thomas: Maybe that was in the hypothetical, maybe.

0:26:02 Liz: So that's onthe state side. If he were the highest he would get on the state side, if he got convicted of the manslaughter charges, would be 25, which I would expect any judge would sentence him to, right? Think he wouldget the top charge there. On the federal side, it's a big question. I mean the highest is life without parole. I know you know I I'm I'm really looking forward to and maybe we can do even like a a short version of this when we get it but I am looking forward you they're gonna have certain uh -sentence um that are going to be filed on the part of the defense making arguments for you sentence that they're asking for uh that the government government is definitely going to be asking for the life without parole. And we're going to see what happens there. You know, I think that thing that the defense is going to be doing is they're going be saying, listen, he took full responsibility for what he did. Was fully allocuted. He is sorry. He takes responsibility, hitting that over the head. And then they're probably you know. I don't know. Maybe they they will attach a expert report from like a psychiatrist or of their choosing. This is something that could be typical explaining kind of his mental health state. And this is not, you know, a lot of times people think that like, you know mental health or psych related defenses are sort of, you just say that you were mentally ill. You can't really do that. But this is more to the end of mitigation. It's like he was in deep pain and suffering and this is why he was in this place in his head that he

0:26:06 Thomas: Gotcha. Yeah.

0:27:28 Liz: Chose to kill this person, right? And I think they'll probably attach maybe support statements from family, from friends, from other individuals. Then they'll ask the judge for, I think that they will make an ask of the judge we'll see what the judge does. Is a judge that the nation is watching. Rushing. You know, federal judges, of course, they have, you know, lifetime employment, thanks to our Constitution there. But I don't know what she's, I don' t know what the judge will do here. Think there's a very good chance he will get, you now, a life sentence without parole. I think there' s also a very good chance that, you she might, you give him some sort of, you know, a very long sentence. I'm sure.

0:28:08 Thomas: We know, so we know what judge will be doing the sentencing?

0:28:11 Liz: So it's the same judge who been with him this whole time. So on the federal side, it's Judge Margaret Margaret Garnett. She is a Biden appointee, um, she has only been on the bench for, two years. You know, she was a, uh, long time assistant U .S. attorney. She is a former prosecutor for 12 years. Among other things. She was the chief of the violent crimes unit of SDNY. Don't know if you would call her a sort of soft on crime person based on her resume. It's hard to say. Sometimes we joke a little bit. Sometimes actually former prosecutors are sort of not terrible judges, I think, because you'd be surprised. I think because they kind of know prosecutors' antics and they sort of hold them to that. But I mean, I don' t know if you really want someone who is the head of the District's Violent Crimes Bureau as your judge? You probably don't. That probably wouldn't be your first pick, I would say. That being said, arguments like he's taken responsibility really hold sway on these types of people, just to be a little cynical and make a generalization. This is something I find very very obnoxious. But I cannot tell you the amount of times that prosecutors have really just made a point of, oh, we're only offering this deal if they're willing to take responsibility and emphasize, my clients have to do these sort of, if there's a report that they have where they talk to someone from they get sentenced, it's called an INS report. Court.

0:29:42 Thomas: Trump had to do that, right? Or

0:29:43 Liz: Exactly. He had to do that. Exactly. And it's like if you don'tfully take responsibility, then the judge is not bound by the promised sentence. I mean, it's just they really I don't know. Prosecutors really take seriously this idea of someone taking responsibility. And I guess the reason I'm so cynical on it is I've had so many clients plead guilty to things that they didn't do. And so I'm I'm like, you know, I just feel like this is prosecutors trying I don't know. Maybe maybe they have a guilty conscience themselves. I'm not sure. Whatever it is that, you Know, they feel it's like their way of saying that none of they've never made anyone plead guilty to something they didn't do. Just to say, I think these arguments of he's taking responsibility, so on, so on, will hold, hold weight with her. I don' t know. I mean, she was nominated by a Democrat for what it's worth. I don''t know how much that means anything.

0:30:26 Thomas: Yeah. I mean, I did like that he got in a pretty good snipe in his statement. I don't know if that'll come back to haunt him or anything. But the fact they talked about how when he tried to get a hold of them, when he posed being like an investor or something and got a hold of the health people right away versus when he was trying to actually get like coverage he couldn't get through or

0:30:45 Liz: That was, that was incredible. Um, you know, I have the transcript here, but that United healthcare would be holding its annual investment conference in New York city on December 4th, 2024. Although the specific location was not publicly disclosed. I then researched the event online. November of 2024, I I traveled from outside New York to State Manhattan. I then emailed UnitedHealthcare leadership posing as an investor at a firm managing over $50 billion in assets and requesting information about the conference. Unlike my previous interactions with insurers, I received an immediate response within an hour.

0:31:20 Thomas: Mean, it's true. It's not like, I feel like if this is your whole strategy, the thing you've outlined, I feel Like I'd probably be treading super lightly, but I don't know. I don' think that's like that bad necessarily. It also, maybe it helps try the motivation. Like, I guess it kind of goes that way, too. Like he was so frustrated with, you entire thing that maybe it plays in that mindset a little bit. So talked about the defense that he kind of abandoned or whatever, that emotional. Emotional disturbance one but it's it sounds like you're saying for the sentencing though is he able to just kind of throw whatever at it and just try try all those arguments and just hope it works that's good so it's not like bard or anything put

0:31:53 Liz: Everything. Everything. No defense attorneys write really, really detailed reports on behalf of their clients. Uh, they often submit reports from experts, letters from family. I mean, it's sort of, you know, any, anything goes that you think is going to be influential on the judge.

0:32:12 Thomas: A bunch of like denial notices of coverage or something just Just all your medical bills, you know, something.

0:32:19 Liz: Think that's, I think it's, it, I mean he may even include, um, he made me make more of a statement himself. Uh Yeah, I mean, it's be a lot of arguments as to sentencing, and I think really worth revisiting. And it'll been interesting to see what the judge will do. But hard for me to predict. You know, she has a lot discretion here. Thinking about, you like what are next steps going to look like? Think in the New York side, you're going to probably see a you much right after he pled guilty, his New York lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the case.

0:32:54 Thomas: State one?

0:32:55 Liz: In the New York case, yeah, on the basis of the double jeopardy clause. So you're going to see a long briefing schedule there. I think it'll be interesting to see the motions there, any arguments. Then I think the sentencing stuff on the federal side will be really interesting also for all the reasons that we discussed. And so I think that's kind of like what remains to be seen there. But I think think the last thing is, you what remains to be seen about Luigi, right? Think Luigi is going to totally go away in the public consciousness. Mean, I don' t know. I'm just speculating here, but I'm curious if he's going to write a book or, you curious kind of what his sort of staying power will be.

0:33:33 Thomas: We've interviewed people in prison before. Maybe he'll come on our way after that's all said and done. Yeah, it's interesting. I wonder, do you think there could be, man, I think Democrats are too cowardly. But if he ends up with just federal stuff, then that's like a presidential grant of clemency or pardon kind of thing could have theoretically happened someday.

0:33:40 Liz: Imean, totally possible, right. Yeah, that's the the other thing to think about right uh

0:33:59 Thomas: If only Democrats weren't cowards.

0:34:01 Liz: If only democrats weren't cowards

0:34:03 Thomas: See. We'll See. Maybe President AOC will get in there.

0:34:06 Liz: I mean it's really stunning to see the part I mean I don't know you guys talk about this all the time but the pardons that happen right now on the republican end in terms of like these meticulously crafted incredibly hard to prove cases of fraud you know Fraud is one of the hardest cases to prove, types of cases to prove. It's much easier to prove a murder than it is to prove fraud because there's forensic evidence and a dead person. Fraud, you really have to show intent to defraud. You have to show this person's response. Fraudsters, I don't know, oftentimes they delete their emails, hide their tracks. Runeus and all of these horrific fraud cases on the Trump side where these people are getting pardons by Trump and basically making donations and piling with them. I mean, it's really sickening.

0:34:15 Thomas: I know. Yeah. Somebody pardoned Luigi, it would not be nearly as bad as the pardons. Not even close. They pardoned all January Sixers. It's not even close to that. They pardoned that couple that that, brandished guns at the protest, the Black Lives Matter protest in Texas or whatever that they pardoned. That insane couple.

0:34:58 Liz: All of them. Oh, that was so sick.

0:35:06 Thomas: Yeah, it's like we haven't. It makes me so mad. The injustice of those things like people just move on. I don't know what else to do, but that same standard would not apply. Now, in my script, in mine, in mind, in might like probably let's be real erotic fiction. Here's what happens. We elect President AOC. She's the first bachelor to be made president. She pardons Luigi. They get together. He's now the first man. That's that's that'S my new watch.

0:35:37 Liz: Not no. That's like, I mean that's

0:35:40 Thomas: Republicans shit themselves over that.

0:35:40 Liz: Like you know, I'm such a big like AOC fan that I'm not even that far away from reading fan fiction about her and I would read that fan fiction at a minimum.

0:35:48 Thomas: I got one customer. Yeah.

0:35:49 Liz: So So there you go. Or like, you know, right, a new fan fiction podcast.

0:35:51 Thomas: And I as well. We've got. OK, well, talk. Stock. Ooh,

0:35:57 Liz: And yeah, truly, like, let's, you know, I mean, exactly.

0:35:58 Thomas: That's true. Do breathy readings of it. You know, like let's get, let's give the medium, let's explore the medium. I'm sure people already have, but I haven't.

0:36:10 Liz: Sick shit that's happening on the Trump side. And yeah. All of January 6. saw a statistic the other day that of the fraudsters that he's pardoned. And it's something, not only did he pardon all these people, but something by doing so, there were various restitution payments and stuff like that that were set up. It is like $2 billion that just gets wiped out. So these people who were even probably getting back a tiny fraction of what was stolen from them, they don't get it. It's sick. So yeah, I mean, if you have it, may as well use it. Pardon power. That's my philosophy. Use it to pardon luigi I

0:36:22 Thomas: I saw that. Yeah. What the hell? Unbelievable. All right. Hey, let make this erotic fiction erotic fact. Man, that would be so great. That'd be so amazing. Look, I'm shipping them. They don't say that much anymore, do they? Can't remember. Is that already like new lingo that's not new, so now I sound older by trying to say it now, or is that still good? Is shipping still good?" I I don't know.

0:37:01 Liz: The least cool person alive these days I thought I was cool and hip with the teens and then I hung out with my like arguable millennial gen z friends and they used like five different phrases I didn't understand and I

0:37:13 Thomas: Yeah, no, me neither. So this is the blind leading the blind here. Okay, never mind.

0:37:16 Liz: No it's not it's I

0:37:18 Thomas: Then also, oh, wait, hold on. There's aNother element to that. More erotic fiction. The president now has immunity to do whatever, I guess she'll just have to go ahead and order several hits as part of her presidential duties. You not do

0:37:30 Liz: Mean she can do whatever she you on

0:37:32 Thomas: She wants? They said that about Trump. So I guess you can do it.

0:37:34 Liz: As long as it's in the capacity of your presidential absolutely

0:37:37 Thomas: You can't even look into it. You can't look into the motivations if it's an official act. So There you go.

0:37:37 Liz: Fine No no Exactly, it's an official

0:37:43 Thomas: We've got it. That's, Oh boy. I don't even think any sex needs to happen in this erotic thriller for it to be considered erotic. It's already, it's just the thing she's going to do.

0:37:43 Liz: Act all of this stuff yeah yeah know there are many reasons to vote for AOC which you know but this is uh well I mean she hasn't set out to run yet, but knock on wood, she's hope. She's

0:38:01 Thomas: Boy. We'll see. I'll see. I s a woman, so everyone will turn on her. Enough people will, but I'm, going to, I'm going to do everything I can. All right. Well, anything else we should know about this beautiful man and the fact that he's now certainly serving at least quite a bit of time, right?

0:38:18 Liz: Guess what's really unfortunate is I will not get, I don't know if I told you guys I had a far away Luigi sighting at one point. Kind of snuck into a courtroom. I was able to, it was kind of a not so interesting Luigi day. I do work there. So I have a little bit of grease. Maybe don't report me. I mean, not that much. Uh, but basically, you know, I flashed my card and I was like, Hey, can, is there any way I can get in? There's any space. And the court officers were very accommodating and I snuck in and I, I saw him from far away and I saw that, that beautiful, head of hair. And I think it was one of the days he was wearing like the maroon sweater that looked very good. I remember correctly. So, yeah, I'm going to lose my Luigi sightings, um, or any potential for them, which is unfortunate for me. There won't be, it's kind of fun whenever there's a Luigi day at the courthouse because there's just a huge of reporters outside. You know, it's like a whole scene. I don't know. I guess, you know, like one of the things that is nice about my job is sometimes it's just kind of fun seeing that sort of scene.

0:39:16 Liz: It gets really annoying, but so we're going to lose that. That's the sort of downside for me is that my own I mean, listen, I'm happy to give up Luigi to AOC but my own Luigi chances are well they were never really much to begin with but they're gonna be nothing soon

0:39:30 Thomas: Darn too bad. We'll keep an eye out for that briefing. I'll be curious to see the state's argument and be very curious to see what happens there. I hope you're right. I hope this and if you are right and if the state charges go away, I do feel like I mean, that's pretty much job well done by the attorneys. Right. I as good as you could have done.

0:39:47 Liz: I I think I think they did pretty well uh did pretty well on that front I think it would have been fun and I understand why they didn't do this but I do think it would have been fun for them to, you know, try to hang a federal, uh, and really go hard on EED, extreme emotional disturbance in New York state, maybe get them 25 years and then frustrate the feds enough that maybe they stopped retrying it. I mean, that's the, that was sort of the best outcome that I think they could have gotten. That was the dream, but they made conservative, but reasonable choices and are not living the dream.

0:40:11 Thomas: Was the dream. Right. Well, Liz Skeen, thanks as always so much. We got to talk more often.

0:40:22 Liz: A pleasure. Yeah.

0:40:23 Thomas: Thanks for jumping on explaining that.

0:40:25 Liz: I love being on and I hope everyone's doing well. And yeah, look forward to, you know, kind of final updates on Luigi.