Luigi Mangione Discussed Healthcare, Media Coverage With Officer

Apparently, Luigi Mangione's been pretty chatty behind bars since his arrest last year ... at least according to one officer, who spoke during Luigi's pretrial hearing Monday.

Pennsylvania Department of Corrections Officer Tomas Rivers said he was sitting 2 feet away from Luigi's 8-foot-by-12-foot cell when the two sparked up a wide-ranging conversation about healthcare ... and the media's perception of the infamous shooting.

According to Rivers, they had a casual conversation about private healthcare versus nationalized healthcare ... after Luigi had just been arrested on suspicion of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson with a firearm.

Rivers testified Luigi had a lot to say about the polarized ways different types of media were viewing the shooting.

As you know ... while some traditional outlets viewed the killing as an appalling, cold-blooded murder, many on social media and in the real world heralded the event as a heroic act, appointing the alleged assailant to ironic sainthood due to the alleged injustices committed by the healthcare industry.

Rivers said, at the time, Luigi was particularly disappointed by seeing comparisons made between him and the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski.

After his December 2024 apprehension, Luigi was originally locked up at a state correctional institution in Pennsylvania, but later extradited to New York and transferred to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

When asked why Luigi was moved, Rivers answered that MDC has more security to prevent any extortion of Luigi or any "Epstein-like incident."

Rivers said he writes down Luigi's movements 7 times an hour -- possibly an effort to prevent a suicide or a crucial gap in his recorded movements, as with the Jeffrey Epstein case.

This is the first time Luigi's been in court since mid-September. Prosecutors came out guns blazing -- so to speak -- showing footage of Thompson being blown away on a Manhattan sidewalk.