Luigi Mangione due in court for pivotal hearing on backpack — and may wear suit

Luigi Mangione, the Ivy League graduate charged with executing the head of America’s largest health care company on a Midtown sidewalk, is due back in Manhattan court Monday for an evidence hearing that could make or break his state case.

The 27-year-old scion of a wealthy Maryland family — who has donned a bulletproof vest, sweaters and tan jail scrubs at previous appearances — is expected to wear a suit during a marathon proceeding where prosecutors are expected to call more than two dozen witnesses who were involved in his arrest.

The high-stakes hearing will probe Mangione’s claim that his rights were breached when police officers searched his backpack without a warrant after arresting him inside an Altoona, Pa., McDonald’s — where someone spotted the accused assassin lowering his COVID-19 mask to munch on a hash brown.

If Judge Gregory Carro agrees, he could deal prosecutors a crippling blow by blocking them from showing jurors what was inside the bag — including the pistol allegedly used to kill UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the notebook where Mangione allegedly explained his motive for the cold-blooded murder.

“It could be devastating to the People’s case if they lost the backpack containing the murder weapon,” defense attorney and former Brooklyn homicide prosecutor Julie Rendelman told The Post.

“While the People do have other evidence supporting his guilt, suppression would severely limit the evidence they can point to at trial.”

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is preparing to call a whopping 28 witnesses to the stand and play “hours and hours of body cam footage” at a hearing that could last a full week, one of Mangione’s lawyers, Marc Agnifilo, told a judge last Monday while discussing scheduling in a separate case.

The unusually large amount of witnesses for a pre-trial hearing — which will also probe whether police illegally questioned Mangione before reading him his Miranda rights — “does not generally bode well” for the prosecution, according to defense attorney Seth Zuckerman.

“It may be a tacit acknowledgement that they recognize there are issues with the police’s warrantless search and questioning of Mangione,”  the founder of Zuckerman Legal Group told The Post. 

Zuckerman, also a former prosecutor, believes there’s an “excellent chance” that Judge Carro suppresses at least some of the evidence at issue, as “it appears clear” that Altoona police “bungled the search of Mangione’s backpack by not following protocol and not waiting for a warrant.”

Mangione is separately charged in Manhattan federal court in a case where the feds have taken the unusual step of asking for the death penalty — a move that Mangione’s lawyers have ripped as political.

The accused murderer became a twisted folk hero to some — crowdfunding more than $1 million for his legal costs — after evidence emerged that Thompson, a father of two, was killed in a targeted hit that aimed to shed light on the health care industry’s flaws.

Shell casings found at the scene bore messages that mirrored phrases that health care giants like United are alleged to have used to deny coverage claims.

In the diary found inside his backpack, Mangione plotted to “rebel against the deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel” by targeting “a company that literally extracts human life force for money.”

“I do apologize for any strife or trauma, but it had to be done,” the accused killer wrote in a separate letter addressed to the FBI, court records say.

“Frankly, these parasites had it coming.”

The judge in Mangione’s federal case has ordered that jail officials at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center allow the accused assassin to shed his drab inmate scrubs and be carted to the courthouse Monday morning wearing what he chooses from a selection of two suits, three shirts and three sweaters.