Correction: Daniel Penny did not enter a plea in today’s hearing. This story and headline have been updated.
Daniel Penny, the man who put Jordan Neely in a deadly chokehold nearly two weeks ago, was arraigned on a charge of manslaughter in Manhattan Criminal Court.
Penny, 24, will face up to 15 years in prison if he is found guilty. Supervising Judge Kevin McGrath set bail at $100,000 and ordered Penny to turn over his passports within 48 hours. Penny, who was dressed in a black suit and white button-down shirt, looked straight ahead with his hands in cuffs behind him. He barely spoke, except to answer a few basic questions.
Penny was escorted into a packed courtroom shortly after noon, as throngs of reporters waited outside the doors to the arraignment room and on the sidewalk across the street from the courthouse in Lower Manhattan.
Prosecutors asked for the bail conditions set by McGrath, and defense attorneys did not object – though they noted that Penny had voluntarily turned himself in after cooperating with law enforcement since the incident. They called him a “pillar of his community” and said he received multiple accolades while serving in the Marines, including a Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and six ribbons.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office said Penny did not enter a plea Friday.
Neely, 30, was riding the F train toward the Broadway-Lafayette station in SoHo last Monday when he started yelling that he was hungry and thirsty, according to a Facebook post by Juan Alberto Vazquez, an independent journalist who was in the subway car. Vazquez also posted a cellphone video of part of the incident. Vazquez wrote that Neely said he didn’t care if he went to jail or died, and that he threw down his jacket. Then, according to the reporter, Penny put him in a chokehold and took him to the ground.
The cellphone video shows Penny on the ground with his arm wrapped around Neely’s neck as he squirms at first, but then goes limp. Penny kept Neely…
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