Accused Ivy League assassin’s viral courtroom appearance asked and answered

Capolupo seized the notes but allowed Mangione to wear the socks. However, “he felt that ‘they did not look good’” and took them off, according to prosecutors.

“Fortunately, the items smuggled were handwritten notes and not contraband capable of harming the transporting officers,” Seidemann added.

Mangione’s team declined to comment but shared a separate filing his defense made Wednesday, in which his attorneys asked for additional discovery materials and also addressed the letters.

“This was obviously inadvertent as one of the two heart-shaped notes was not even addressed to Mr. Mangione,” defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo wrote to the judge. “The District Attorney’s Office ostensibly realized the innocent nature of this event, and that it was not a genuine danger or concern, as they did not bother to alert the Court at the time. If this ‘incident’ is the basis for the danger the prosecution is referencing, we submit that this does not meet the standard to allow them to deny our reasonable requests.”

The back and forth comes as prosecutors are asking the court to deny Mangione’s request to have a laptop in his jail cell – which they say is an unnecessary privilege – and additional discovery materials.

“We are demanding discovery regarding civilian witnesses, any police identification of Mr. Mangione by San Francisco police officers, discovery surrounding the prosecution’s theory of terrorism, and the contents of any electronic devices recovered from Mr. Mangione,” Friedman Agnifilo added.

In another filing, Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Zachary Kaplan listed a number of pieces of physical evidence police have recovered in addition to the suspected murder weapon.

Mangione had nearly $8,000 in cash on him when police arrested him, two Faraday bags, which can be used to block phone signals, multiple hard drives and a laptop, three wallets, an iPhone, “33 miscellaneous pills” and other items. Police recovered another phone near the crime scene and DNA evidence on discarded food packaging.