NEW YORK — Daniel Penny pleaded not guilty to manslaughter charges Wednesday for the subway chokehold killing of Jordan Neely, as new details emerged about the fatal encounter aboard an F train last month.
In an interview after police arrived, Penny said Neely “threw shit” and said he was ready to go to prison, court documents released Wednesday show.
“The guy came in, he threw shit, he’s like I’m ready to go to prison for life, I’m ready to die, I’m ready to die, and I was standing behind him. I think I might have just put him in a choke, put him down,” Penny told NYPD officers immediately after the incident, according to new court filings.
“We just went to the ground. He was trying to roll up, I had him pretty good, I was in the Marine Corps.”
Prosecutors detailed several accounts from NYPD officers who questioned Penny after the May 1 incident in documents filed after his Manhattan Supreme Court arraignment. Police initially released Penny before he was later charged.
Another quoted Penny as saying people were afraid based on Neely’s behavior.
“He was pacing back and forth on the car. I came from behind and put him in a chokehold. People in the subway were afraid for their safety.”
The former Marine from Long Island appeared Wednesday alongside his lawyers for a brief court appearance two weeks after a grand jury indicted him on second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges.
“Not guilty,” Penny told the court when asked how he wished to plead.
Penny’s attorneys said they planned to argue that he employed his “right and duty” to protect others from “grave harm.” They said they were confident he would clear his name.
“We feel very confident that a Manhattan jury will be able to judge this case fairly and return a not guilty verdict, particularly since most of the members of the jury will have had experiences similar to what our client observed on the subway during this incident,” Thomas Kenniff told the Daily News after the hearing.
“He’s feeling confident. Obviously, it’s not a situation that anybody wants to be in,” Kenniff added. “He’s someone who’s faced adversity before.”
Outside the courthouse, Neely’s lawyers condemned his alleged killer, who they said looked away from the slain man’s family seated inside the courtroom.
“Daniel Penny killed a man; he took a life,” Donte Mills said. “For anybody who’s court curious, no, Daniel Penny did not have the courage to look Mr. Jordan’s father, Andre, in the eye.”
Penny’s plea paves the way for a trial in the high-profile case that’s generated national attention.
Still unclear is what exactly happened before the chokehold. Neely, who got on the train at Second Ave. and was on the floor with Penny’s arm around his neck when it reached the next stop, isn’t accused of attacking anyone.
At Penny’s first court appearance in May, Manhattan prosecutors said Neely got on the train and started “making threats and scaring passengers” when Penny approached him from behind and put him in a chokehold.
In a press release Wednesday, the DA’s office specified they were “verbal threats.”
Among evidence prosecutors have gathered in their case against Penny include 911 Calls, videotaped witness accounts, police body camera footage, cell phone footage shot by three people that witnessed the incident, and MTA surveillance footage, according to court records.
“Daniel Penny stands indicted for Manslaughter after allegedly putting Jordan Neely in a deadly chokehold for several minutes until and after he stopped moving. I hope Mr. Neely’s loved ones are on the path towards healing as they continue to mourn this tragic loss,” DA Alvin Bragg said in a statement.
An NYPD source previously told the Daily News that five passengers called 911 before and during the encounter. One of the passengers said Neely was making threats and “harassing people.” Other callers said the ex-Marine was restraining Neely until the police arrived.
The witness who filmed the viral video, journalist Alberto Vazquez, said Neely told passengers he was hungry and didn’t seem like he wanted to hurt people.
Neely, who grew up in Manhattan and New Jersey, was known to many New Yorkers as a passionate Michael Jackson tribute artist. He battled severe mental illness and homelessness, according to his relatives and friends. The NYPD arrested Neely 42 times across the last decade.
When cell phone footage of Neely’s killing went viral and nobody was in custody, demonstrators took to the streets over the unaccounted killing of a poor and unarmed Black man on the subway.
Bystander video showed the 24-year-old Penny holding a writhing Neely in a minutes-long chokehold until he stopped moving. Medics transported him to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
As calls mounted for Penny to be publicly identified and charged with Neely’s death, the Manhattan district attorney brought manslaughter charges on May 11. A grand jury indicted him about a month later.
Penny, an architecture student who was unemployed and looking for work at the time of the incident, found staunch support among right-wing politicians and Republican presidential candidates, leading to more than $3 million in donations toward his legal defense.
A lawyer for Neely’s family, Lennon Edwards, said Penny’s powerful backers didn’t change the facts of the case.
“Even $3 million, even a legal defense fund, even interviews that took place weeks before this happened, can’t make justice look the other way. So please keep watching,” Edwards said after Penny’s court appearance.
Penny, who’s out on a $100,000 bond, is due back in court October 25.
