Daniel Penny trial verdict is in after judge’s bombshell ruling in subway chokehold case: Live updates

The Marine veteran, 26, faced 15 years in prison for charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally-negligent homicide after the incident on the F train last spring, which was partly recorded and sparked a passionate national debate.

Neely’s father Andre Zachary was escorted out of the room after Penny was acquitted of negligent homicide.

A woman on the prosecution’s side then told Penny: ‘you’re a racist fu****g c**t.’

BLM activist Walter ‘Hawk’ Newsome, who says he is Neely’s uncle, was also escorted out after he appeared to threaten Penny, saying ‘it’s a small fu***ng world, buddy.’

As a younger man, Neely did Michael Jackson tributes — complete with moonwalks — on the city’s streets and subways, building a reputation among the artist’s fans and impersonators. But Neely also struggled with mental illness after losing his mother, whose boyfriend was convicted of murdering her.

Hospitalized for depression at age 14, Neely later was diagnosed with schizophrenia that at times made him hallucinate and become paranoid, according to medical records seen at the trial. Neely also used the synthetic cannabinoid K2 and realized it negatively affected his thinking and behavior, according to a 2019 hospital record. The drug was in his system when he died.

Neely told a doctor in 2017 that being homeless, living in poverty and having to ‘dig through the garbage’ for food made him feel so worthless and hopeless that he sometimes thought of killing himself, hospital records show.

About six years later, he boarded a subway under Manhattan on May 1, 2023, hurled his jacket onto the floor, and declared that he was hungry and thirsty and didn’t care if he died or went to jail, witnesses said. Some told 911 operators that he tried to attack people or indicated he’d harm riders, and several testified that they were nervous or outright feared for their lives.

‘I just wanna say I miss my son,’ Neely’s father Andre Zachary said on Monday.

‘My son didn’t have to go through this, what are we gonna do?

‘Whats gonna happen to us now? The system is rigged.’

Penny was rushed out the backdoor of the courtroom after hsi acquittal on negligent homicide.

Protestors outside have continued to shout ‘No justice, no peace.’

The jury quickly came back with an unanimous decision on the lesser count of negligent homicide.

Screams erupted in the courtroom after a decision was read.

Tensions were high in the courtroom as Justice Maxwell Wiley addressed ‘unfair assertions’ made against Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran in the media during the trial.

He described the media reporting about Yoran as ‘uncalled for’ after several outlets including DailyMail.com noted her past lobbying of lesser sentences for criminals, which is in dark contrast with her prosecution of Penny.

The comments sparked an angry reaction from Penny’s lawyer Thomas Kenniff, who said they should not have been made on the record.

‘The DA is a public official. I don’t know why there was even a discussion about what was being said online.’

Kenniff snapped moments later as Yoran repeatedly attempted to speak over the top of him, saying: ‘allow me to finish. PLEASE.’

Phil Mickelson supported Daniel Penny after he took on step closer to freedom on Friday.

‘Random thoughts Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth are great in the booth. ‘Day of the Jackal’ is an incredible show,’ he wrote on X.

‘If a deranged individual threatens to kill you let’s hope there’s a Daniel Penny around.’

‘Thank you Daniel for serving your country and for protecting the many passengers whose lives were threatened by this violent and deranged individual,’ the six-time major winner later added.

Daniel Penny’s lawyer has slammed BLM protesters who are shouting from outside the courthouse, telling the judge that they’re threatening jurors and could potentially scare them into finding him guilty.

Thomas Kenniff handed over an audio recording taken from inside the defense suite on the 13th floor, revealing the chants were clearly audible in the room even with all the windows closed.

He said it was likely that jurors in their deliberations were hearing the same phrases, which include: ‘Daniel Penny Subway Strangler’ and ‘if we don’t get no justice, they don’t get no peace’.

‘That should be interpreted as a threat against the jury,’ he said.

Justice Wiley agreed he had heard that phrase as well, but said he did not want to draw jurors attention to it again when they’ve ignored the opinions of protesters thus far.

Kenniff said: ‘It was prefaced by a press conference on the courthouse steps on Friday by activists supporting the Neely family, I suppose. Where they threatened riots and violence as what they saw as the injustice of what occurred on Friday and the prospect of something less than a guilty verdict.’

The man he was referring to, Hawk Newsome, was in the courtroom at the time. He scoffed and shook his head in Kenniff’s direction, before getting to his feet and walking out of the courtroom.

Almost simultaneously, the chants from outside became louder and audible even over the discussions.

As court convened Monday morning, Judge Maxwell Wiley told jurors he wasn’t directing them to reach a verdict, unless all 12 agreed it was right under the law and the evidence.

‘It’s not the court’s business to talk about what directions your deliberations are taking or what you’re talking about, and it’s certainly not the court’s role to influence your deliberations. In fact, that’s improper. That’s entirely up to you,’ Wiley told the panel.

The judge at the center of a controversial decision to drop the manslaughter charge against Daniel Penny in his highly-publicized subway death trial is no stranger to contentious decisions.

Justice Maxwell Wiley is an acting Justice of the New York County Supreme Court, having presided over controversial trials in the role for 20 years.

On Friday, Justice Wiley risked creating ‘reversible error’ and handing the defense a pathway to appeal any conviction when he contradicted his own jury instructions which demanded they don’t consider a secondary charge of negligent homicide until they’d reached a verdict on the manslaughter charge.

On Monday, Penny’s defense team once again asked the judge to declare a mistrial.

‘I disagree with the defense. I don’t agree the court has committed a legal error,’ judge Wiley said as he denied the defense’s request.

‘I deny your motion for mistrial,’ he continued.

‘The jurors can continue their deliberations. Whenever they are ready for us, we are ready.’

Among Penny’s supporters was New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

In a shock intervention this weekend, before the trial was reached, Adams spoke out to criticize the media for how they presented Neely.

He also praised Penny for his actions, and slammed the New York City systems that allowed Neely, who was mentally ill and violent, to walk free.

Jurors began deliberating last Tuesday and at the time were told they needed to reach a verdict on the manslaughter count before they could consider criminally negligent homicide.

On Friday, they told Wiley they were deadlocked on the top charge, and remained so even after he urged them to keep trying.

‘Whether that makes any difference or not, I have no idea. But I’m going to direct you to focus your deliberations on count two,’ Judge Maxwell Wiley said, telling them to ‘go home and think about something else.’

The jury in Penny’s trial is scheduled to begin their delibarations on the negligence homicide charge at 9.45 EST.

These jurors – seven women and five men – have been granted anonymity due to the contentious nature of the trial.

Neely, 30, was a famous Michael Jackson impersonator and often seen across the city dancing in a red Thriller leather jacket and the popstar’s quintessential loafers.

According to his family, he suffered from autism and schizophrenia and was permanently scarred by the murder of his mother, Christine Neely, in 2007.

He was arrested 42 times in the last decade of his life.

Assistant Manhattan DA Dafna Yoran has asked jurors to convict the marine veteran of manslaughter over the subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely, despite previously pushing for ‘restorative justice’ for criminals.

The black-and-white signs displayed the words ‘A MAN WAS LYNCHED HERE’ along with Neely’s name, as they replaced previous ads on the train.

One of Penny’s lawyers, Daniel Kenniff, noted after court that jurors did hear from Penny, in the form of his recorded statements to police minutes and hours after he put Neely in a chokehold.

Penny told police he was not trying to kill Neely, who he described as a ‘crackhead.’

Fox News political activist Gregg Jarrett accused Judge willey of ‘rewriting his own rules’ after he allowed the prosecution’s request to drop the manslaughter charge against Penny after the jury was deadlocked.

‘If the jury convicts on the lesser charge, it would be overturned on appeal because the judge contradicted hisown earlier ruling that the jury could only consider the second act if they found Penny not guilty of the first count,’ Jarrett said.

‘The judge is letting the jury do what he said he couldn’t do, and the defense is right, this is coercive, sort of forcing the jury to convict by changing the rules.’

Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran on Tuesday displayed a graphic photo of inside Neely’s eye, taken during an autopsy after his death, which shocked the room.

The image was blasted across four screens – two facing the jury, a third facing the viewing gallery and a fourth directly in front of the defendant.

Meanwhile Penny’s lawyer tore into the prosecution after journalists were peppered with emails from the DA’s office ordering them to include certain details in their stories.

In his closing arguments defense attorney Steven Raiser pointed out no expert witness during the trial could prove key elements beyond reasonable doubt.

The jurors began deliberating Tuesday and at the time were told they needed to reach a verdict on the manslaughter count before they could consider criminally negligent homicide.

But on Friday, they told the judge they were deadlocked on the top charge, and remained so even after Wiley urged them to keep trying.

Penny, seen below, listens as Judge Maxwell Wiley presides in his trial at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City, on December 6.

ordan Neeley’s family have filed a lawsuit against Daniel Penny – a homeless man who died after he was held in a chokehold on the New York subway last year.

They are suing Penny, a former member of the Marine Corps, for negligent contact, assault, and battery that caused injuries and ultimately death, The Independent has reported.

The judge overseeing Penny’s trial dismissed the top charge in the case on Friday at the request of prosecutors, allowing jurors to consider a lesser count after they deadlocked on whether he was guilty over the death of Jordan Neely on a New York subway train.

Judge Maxwell Wiley’s decision will now let jurors deliberate a charge of criminally negligent homicide, which carries a lighter punishment.

Manslaughter requires proving a defendant recklessly caused another person’s death, and carries up to 15 years.

Criminally negligent homicide, which carries punishments ranging from probation to up to four years in prison, involves engaging in serious ‘blameworthy conduct’ while not perceiving such a risk.

The jury could not come to an unanimous decision on whether Penny was guilty or not of manslaughter.

Judge Maxwell Wiley shockingly allowed the prosecution to drop the manslaughter charge on Friday after jurors were deadlocked – and after the defense asked for a new trial due to a hung jury.

While the judge allowed prosecutors to drop the most serious charge, which carried up to 15 years in prison, Penny still faces up to four years punishment if convicted of the lesser charge.

Criminally negligent homicide carries punishments ranging from probation to up to four years in prison.

It involves engaging in serious ‘blameworthy conduct’ while not perceiving such a risk.

Below, Daniel Penny enters Manhattan Supreme Court Monday as the jury in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely deliberate for a fifth day.