Daniel Penny was all smiles Monday as he and his lawyers loosened their ties and celebrated a not guilty verdict after his acquittal in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely, who was threatening to kill subway riders when the 26-year-old Marine veteran grabbed him from behind.
Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man who was high on synthetic marijuana and had schizophrenia when witnesses say he stormed the car and started screaming that someone would die, later lost consciousness and died himself.
Spotted at the Stone Street Tavern in Lower Manhattan Monday, attorney Thomas Kenniff said he was not surprised by the verdict.
"We think that this should have happened probably on day one, but the important thing is it happened," he told a camera from The Associated Press after Penny smiled but turned away without speaking. "We can't control the timing of it, but you can certainly savor the outcome."
DANIEL PENNY FOUND NOT GUILTY IN SUBWAY CHOKEHOLD TRIAL
Jurors found Penny not guilty Monday after a weekslong trial rife with controversy. Critics have called it a politically charged prosecution, especially after Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Dafna Yoran repeatedly appeared to inject racial undertones in a case that did not involve hate crime charges.
Prosecutors painted Neely, who was Black, as a man in need of help and alleged that Penny, a White architecture student who they conceded was right to intervene, took it too far by holding him in a chokehold for too long. Witnesses testified that Neely's erratic behavior terrified them and that they were thankful for Penny's intervention.
DANIEL PENNY RETURNS TO COURT FOR CLOSING ARGUMENTS IN SUBWAY CHOKEHOLD TRIAL
WATCH: Daniel Penny's attorneys react after his acquittal at trial in death of Jordan Neely
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.
