Subway chokehold trial: Daniel Penny put his own life at risk, defense attorney says in closing arguments

Daniel Penny acted to protect passengers on a Queens-bound F train car last year — and put his own life at risk — when he put Jordan Neely in a chokehold, defense attorney Steven Raiser said Monday during closing arguments of the Long Island native's trial for manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

Penny had to act, Raiser told the jurors who will determine the Marine veteran's fate, because Neely, a subway performer who struggled with homelessness and mental illness, entered the subway car at Second Avenue "filled with rage and not afraid of any consequences."

Some witnesses said they feared for their safety after Neely rushed into the subway car on May 1, 2023, threw down his jacket and shouted that he was hungry and willing to kill, die or go to jail

"Danny acted to save those people," Raiser told the jury.

Raiser was expected to resume his closing arguments when the jury returned from its lunch break.

Prosecutors are expected to begin their closing arguments on Monday afternoon and told Judge Maxwell Wiley they will wrap up their case on Tuesday morning. The jury is expected to begin its deliberations after that.

Penny has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Penny's fatal reaction to Neely's outburst has sparked debate about race relations and public safety. Some see Penny, a 26-year-old Marine veteran who moved to the East Village to study architecture, as a hero who protected fellow straphangers from a dangerous and erratic man. Others say he is a white vigilante who callously killed a Black man struggling with mental illness.

In his closing, Raiser asked the jury to imagine how they would have felt when Neely declared that he was willing to kill or die.

"You're sitting much as you are now, in this tightly confined space," the defense attorney said. "You have little room to move and none to run," Raiser said.

Neely, 30, performed in Times Square and in the city's subway system and was known for his Michael Jackson impersonations. But after his mother was violently killed when he was a teenager, Neely was diagnosed with depression and schizophrenia, was repeatedly hospitalized, struggled with drug abuse and had a criminal record that included assault convictions.

Penny, who had been trained in the military extensively in several types of nonlethal restraints, held Neely for nearly six minutes, according to prosecutors, struggling to keep the homeless man from getting back up.

Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran called the West Islip native’s initial actions "laudable" during opening arguments, but said he held the restraint "way too long."

Neely died of asphyxiation from the chokehold about an hour after boarding the train, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which said the manner of death was homicide.

After a brief interrogation in the Fifth Precinct station house, authorities released Penny, who is white, without charges, sparking outrage from criminal justice reformers and civil rights activists.

With The Associated Press and Janon Fisher