Luigi Mangione and Sean “Diddy” Combs Have One Thing In Common: Their Defense Attorneys Are Married To Each Other.

Karen Friedman Agnifilo, the defense attorney for Luigi Mangione, has an interesting task ahead. The case behind the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has captured the public’s attention like few others, from the frustration it’s revealed against the US healthcare system to the cinematic nature of its narrative. There’s only one other criminal case in the popular sphere that’s currently generating as much discussion: the arrest of Sean “Diddy” Combs on federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges. Fascinatingly, Combs’s defense attorney is Marc Agnifilo, Karen’s husband. It must be a wild time in the Agnifilo household, but it’s not the first time the couple have concurrently been in the courtroom with boldfaced names.

Luigi Mangione, who remains in a Pennsylvania jail, retained Karen for the charges he’ll presumably face following an expected extradition to New York, CNN reports. Before her switch to the defense side, Karen served in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office for seven years, making her a solid candidate for Mangione’s complicated case. “She’s got as much experience as any human being, especially in the state court,” one New York prosecutor told CNN. “She knows every corridor, every judge, every clerk in the courthouse.”

During those years, she often bumped up against cases involving her husband, Marc, including the high-profile arrest of former head of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn for his alleged sexual assault of a maid at a New York hotel in 2011. Strauss-Kahn retained Marc as his defense attorney, while Karen—then Manhattan’s chief of the trial division under Cyrus Vance Jr.—“was forced to tuck herself away,” as the New York Times put it, noting that “during the preceding 18 months, the Agnifilos had found themselves in similarly entangled situations two dozen times.” (The criminal case against Strauss-Kahn famously fell apart, while the one-time French presidential contender settled the civil case brought against him by his accuser for an undisclosed sum.)

In the years since, Marc’s name has come up in many a famous trial, including the case against NXIVM sex cult leader Keith Raniere. Marc sprang back into the spotlight when Combs was arrested in September, regularly speaking to the press as the criminal case against Combs winds its way through Manhattan federal court. Most recently, CBS and others report that Marc filed a motion on Friday to dismiss Combs’s appeal for bail, which means Combs will remain at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center until his May 2025 trial.

Meanwhile, Karen, who left the DA’s office for private practice in 2021, has made a name for herself as a CNN commentator, podcaster, and—per ABC7—is the legal advisor for Law & Order, though she was not involved in the show’s 2002 episode which seemed to predict Mangione’s fateful December 4 act. Karen, who has not responded to Vanity Fair’s request for comment, has yet to publicly confirm that she’s taken the job defending one of the most-watched suspects in recent memory.

Mangione is expected to waive extradition at a hearing tentatively scheduled on Tuesday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said at a Friday press conference, which means Karen’s gig might start as soon as next week. At present, Mangione faces second-degree murder charges in New York, though prosecutors say that they’re still gathering evidence that might allow them to upgrade the charges to first-degree.

According to Thomas Dickey, who is representing Mangione in the accsuations leveled against him in Pennsylvania, his client is expected to plead not guilty to all the charges. “If you’re an American, you believe in the American criminal justice system, you have to presume him to be innocent,” Dickey told CNN. “And none of us would want anything other than that if that was us in their shoes. I’m glad that he has some support.”

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