The 24-year-old Marine veteran accused of fatally choking a homeless man on the subway last month pleaded not guilty Wednesday in New York State Supreme Court to charges of manslaughter in the second degree and criminally negligent homicide after a grand jury voted to indict him earlier this month.
At a brief arraignment, prosecutors unsealed the charges against Daniel Penny, who put Jordan Neely, 30, in a chokehold on an uptown F train. If convicted of the top charge, he could spend a maximum of five to 15 years in prison, according to the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
Penny was previously arraigned in mid-May on one charge of second-degree manslaughter and posted his $100,000 bond almost immediately after his court appearance. Judge Maxwell Wiley did not set a new bail at his second arraignment.
Assistant DA Joshua Steinglass prosecutors and defense attorneys had agreed to an order of protection for discoverable materials, including witness lists, which means records from the case will be sealed from the public.
The Lower Manhattan courtroom was packed with reporters and other observers, including a group from Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. Neely’s father, Andre Zachery, also watched from the pews, alongside civil attorneys representing his family. A line of cameras filled the hallway outside.
A few minutes before 10 a.m., Penny walked in, nodded at court officers and sat beside his attorney. In a matter of moments, the charges against him were read, he entered his plea and the judge ticked through a few deadlines. Then, after about six minutes, Penny and his attorneys walked back out of the courtroom, and the judge called for a 10-minute break before the next case on his docket.
On May 1, Neely, a Black man, and Penny, who is white, were riding an F train from the Lower East Side to SoHo when Neely started yelling that he was hungry and thirsty and threw his jacket on the ground, according to an independent journalist who was in the train…
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