Marine veteran Daniel Penny said he’d like to thank the jury that found him not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the 2023 subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely.
"I'd like to give them a hug. I'd like to thank them. Yeah, definitely. It takes a lot of courage, especially in this climate in New York City, to stick up for me," he told "The Five" co-host Judge Jeanine Pirro in a preview Wednesday of an exclusive interview airing on Fox Nation.
Penny’s defense attorneys, Steven Raiser and Thomas Kenniff, expressed their concerns about the trajectory of the trial when Judge Maxwell Wiley dismissed the second-degree manslaughter charge against Penny after the jury said it couldn’t come to a unanimous decision about the top charge.
Once the manslaughter charge was removed and the jury could focus on the second charge, Raiser said they were concerned that somebody who's considering a guilty verdict on the top count might be considering a guilty verdict on the second one, too.
"At that point, we thought the best we could really hope for was a hung jury, but we didn't know. And we also did feel that there was some interplay here as far as understanding the lengths at which this district attorney's office would go in order to secure a conviction, which was quite off-putting for the defense team," he added. "We've never seen anything quite like it."
Penny said if he faced the same situation on the subway where someone was making threats and acting erratically, he would take action again.
"I would not be able to live with myself if I didn't do anything in that situation and someone got hurt," he said. "I would feel guilty for the rest of my life."
The architecture student added that he feared Neely would act on his threats to kill people in the subway car.
"There’s outbursts on the train all the time. Unfortunately, in New York City, there’s always people coming on and saying, kind of, talking crazy, and this was unlike anything that I’ve ever experienced. It was very serious. I completely believed what he was saying," Penny told Pirro.
WITNESS TO JORDAN NEELY CHOKEHOLD DEATH CALLS DANIEL PENNY A ‘HERO’
Penny still faces a civil lawsuit from Neely’s father, Andre Zachery, who accuses the 26-year-old of causing his son’s death through "negligence, carelessness and recklessness."
Zachery is seeking unspecified damages for assault and battery, according to a copy of the civil complaint.
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