Daniel Penny and his legal team were happy on Monday when they received a not guilty verdict in the case where he was accused of causing the death of Jordan Neely with a chokehold. Neely, who was threatening subway passengers and was later found to be under the influence of synthetic marijuana and suffering from schizophrenia, died after losing consciousness following the incident where Penny, a 26-year-old Marine veteran, restrained him.
Neely, a homeless man aged 30, had entered a subway car, behaving erratically and making threats before losing consciousness and passing away.
Spotted at the Stone Street Tavern in Lower Manhattan Monday, attorney Thomas Kenniff said he was not surprised by the verdict.
“We believe this verdict should have been reached sooner, but what matters is that justice prevailed,” Penny expressed to the press, visibly pleased with the outcome. Although he did not make a statement, he expressed gratitude for the result.
Jurors ultimately found him not guilty of criminally negligent homicide. They had deadlocked on the more serious charge, manslaughter, and the judge granted a prosecution motion to dismiss it altogether.
“He’s not guilty on a few different reasons – because his actions were justified. He was trying to help people on that train,” said Steven Raiser, Penny’s other defense attorney. “And he did. And No. 2, he’s not responsible for the death because the death was caused by a lot of other factors that we tried to present with a lot of clarity, such as the K2 abuse and the sickling cell crisis and and cardiac issues, not to mention the paranoid schizophrenia.”
Penny, a Marine veteran who received a humanitarian award for helping hurricane victims, is a Long Island native who friends described as calm and empathetic during trial testimony. He played lacrosse and was in his school’s orchestra as a teen and worked two jobs while studying architecture at the New York City College of Technology following his honorable discharge.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
