Daniel Penny's attorneys kick off defense in subway chokehold trial
NEW YORK (WABC) -- Defense attorneys began their defense of a former U.S. Marine charged with fatally choking a homeless man aboard a Manhattan subway on Monday.
The older sister of Daniel Penny told jurors Monday that her brother was a "calm, soft-spirited person" with a reputation for honesty and integrity.
Jacqueline Penny, a 27-year-old accountant, was called to the witness stand by Daniel Penny's attorneys after prosecutors rested their case Monday afternoon, kicking off a defense presentation that immediately sought to burnish the defendant's character and emphasize his military service.
Penny faces manslaughter charges in the death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man and occasional subway performer known for his Michael Jackson impression.
Prosecutors say Neely was acting erratically but non-violently on the train when Penny threw him to the ground and placed him in a chokehold for six minutes, showing an "indifference" to the life of a man in the throes of a mental health crisis.
Lawyers for Penny counter that their client showed courage by putting his own safety above others as he worked to neutralize a "seething, psychotic" man whose behavior had frightened other riders.
In her testimony Monday, Jacqueline Penny said her brother was a soft-spoken but "always patriotic" striver who followed the other men in the family into the military.
Daniel Penny's defense lawyers entered Jordan Neely's psychiatric records into evidence, detailing an apparent history of diagnoses for schizophrenia and K2 abuse.
Penny's lawyers continued to call character witnesses to the stand on Tuesday, including two Marine sergeants who served with him.
His mother, sister, and other friends also took the stand to praise Penny, charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in the death of Jordan Neely.
Nolan Drylie, Penny's former platoon sergeant who left the Marines on a medical separation and is now an Alabama farmer, said Penny received a Humanitarian Service Medal for his work during Hurricane Florence in 2018.
Gunnery Sgt. Nathaniel Dunchie, who remains on active duty in Texas, testified that "discrimination is not tolerated in the Marine Corps."
Prosecutors questioned both men about their social media posts during cross-examination.
Airline pilot Steven Strachan said he had no friends when he moved to New York from California. But Penny welcomed him to the South Shore, and they went boating in the Great South Bay to and from Fire Island.
A forensic psychiatrist was the next witness.
The forensic psychiatrist reviewed Neely's psychological records from 2015 to 2021 and revealed Neely was hospitalized more than a dozen times.
The most common diagnosis is schizophrenic, K2 abuse and at times schizophrenic affective disorder, according to the psychiatrist.
Records showed that Neely would not take his medicine and had extensive K2 use.
Of all the records he's reviewed and people he's treated, the psychiatrist testified that Neely was one of the most severely psychotic persons that he is aware of.
He cited examples of psychosis, paranoid fears people want to hurt him, people are jealous of him, that Tupac Shakur had encouraged him to change the world and that's what he was doing, bizarre behavior, and testified Neely mentioned more than once he could hear the devil's voice.
He testified that he thought Neely was having a severe psychotic episode on the F train.
The jury will return to court on Thursday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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