Sister of Daniel Penny testifies to his 'calm' spirit and patriotism as defense begins case
NEW YORK - The older sister of Daniel Penny, the former U.S. Marine charged with fatally choking a homeless man aboard a Manhattan subway, 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.
While she painted a picture of a close-knit town and a childhood punctuated with fishing, sports and enduring friendships, she also said their grandparents had been a key source of support to the four Penny siblings when their parents went through a "very difficult" separation during the defendant’s high school years.
She was followed on the witness stand by Alexandra Fay, a childhood neighbor of the family, who spoke of their "typical upbringing" in a Long Island suburb. "He has the same exact friends that he’s had since fifth grade," she said of Penny.
The defense presentation followed three days of testimony from Dr. Cynthia Harris, the city medical examiner who performed an autopsy on Neely and concluded he'd died of the chokehold. In hours of cross-examination Monday, Penny's attorney, Steven Raiser, sought to cast doubt on that finding, questioning the woman's credentials and suggesting she had offered "no evidence that pressure was maintained in a sufficient way" to kill Neely.
Rather, Raiser said Neely, who had sickle cell condition, may have died after ingesting enough synthetic cannabinoid — or K2 — to trigger a fatal "sickling crisis." While K2 was found in Neely’s system, Harris said it was "profoundly improbable" that those factors killed Neely.
She then brushed off the defense attorney's insistence that Penny had not applied enough pressure on Neely’s neck to block the flow of blood to his brain. "I believe there is sufficiently consistent pressure to the vital structure of the neck, which led to him losing consciousness and sustaining brain injury," Harris said.
Manhattan jurors also heard testimony last week from another rider, who said he urged Penny to loosen his grip on Neely’s neck during the fatal encounter, as well as a former martial arts trainer in the U.S. Marines. The trainer said Penny had appeared to misuse a "blood choke" technique that was taught to U.S. Marines as a method to knock a person unconscious.
Jurors were also shown video of Penny's interview with detectives inside the precinct, where he repeatedly referred to Neely as a "crackhead," then demonstrated the chokehold he'd used to subdue him.
"He had his back turned to me and I got him in a hold, got him to the ground, and he’s still squirming around and going crazy," Penny said. "He gets a burst of energy at one point and I did have to hold him a little more steady."