Subway chokehold trial: Witness said he warned Daniel Penny 'You are going to lose him'

A witness in Daniel Penny’s chokehold death trial testified that he told the Long Island Marine veteran on the subway that day that he would kill Jordan Neely if he did not loosen his grip around the homeless man’s neck — but Penny ignored his pleas.

“It was like he was in a whole other trance,” Larry Goodson, 51, of Brooklyn, said of Penny on Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Goodson said Neely had defecated and urinated on himself while Penny held him in a chokehold on a subway train on May 1, 2023.

“If you don’t let him go and that is the state of his body, you are going to lose him,” Goodson said he told Penny, 26, a West Islip native.

Goodson said another man restrained Neely’s hands, telling Penny he could loosen his grip around the Michael Jackson impersonator’s neck. Penny, Goodson said, did not respond.

A Manhattan grand jury indicted Penny last year on charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the death of Neely. Neely, 30, was a subway performer with a history of drug use and mental health struggles.

Penny has pleaded not guilty, and his attorneys say he was defending himself and fellow passengers from a man who was acting unstable and menacing when he took down Neely that afternoon. Witnesses have said that Neely loudly threw his jacket to the ground, declared that he was thirsty, hungry and not afraid of gong to jail before Penny placed him in a chokehold.

Prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said Penny’s intention to protect himself and others was laudable, but he refused to let go of Neely long after the homeless man had gone limp and passengers had left the subway car.

In his opening statement, defense attorney Thomas Kenniff called Neely a “seething psychotic” who was looking for a fight that day.

Goodson, a recovering drug addict who said he had spent time in prison, testified that Neely got his attention because he rushed into the F train car and said he was ready to go to jail. “I have never heard anyone say he was ready to go to jail before,” Goodson said.

Goodson, who said he works for a consulting firm that assists candidates for public office, said Neely was not armed and did not touch or approach anybody on the subway.

“I was not fearful,” he said. “He was not threatening me. As far as I can tell, he was not threatening anyone else.”

Another witness, Ivette Mercedes Rosario, of the Bronx, testified on Monday that Neely’s loud, angry outburst on the train frightened her. “I thought I was going to pass out because I was so nervous,” the 19-year-old testified.

Prosecutors showed the jury a video recorded by Rosario that shows Penny on the floor of the subway car with his arm around Neely’s neck while another witness says, “He’s dying! You gotta let him go.”

Prosecutors said Rosario’s video had never been made public before.

Under cross-examination from Kenniff, Rosario acknowledged that she did not see the entire incident between Penny and Neely because she had buried her head at one point in her friend’s chest.

Prosecutors also showed the jury a video recorded by Juan Alberto Vázquez, 59, an independent journalist from Mexico who has been living in New York for seven years. Vázquez’s video has been widely shared on social media and news outlets. The nearly five-minute video sparked protests and calls from New Yorkers to charge Penny with Neely’s death.

Vázquez testified the video showed Neely “moving his legs desperately” in an attempt to break free from Penny.

“It looks like there he was making his last effort to get free, and then he started moving slower,” Vázquez said. “After that, he didn’t move.”

Testimony in the case will resume on Thursday. The court is closed Tuesday for Election Day, and Acting Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley is presiding over another case Wednesday.