Marine vet Daniel Penny blamed a failed legal justice system for forcing him into his highly-charged encounter with vagrant Jordan Neely on a crowded subway practice — and slammed Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg for taking him to trial within the case.
Penny, 26, talking to Fox Information’ Jeanine Pirro in his first interview since a jury acquitted him of negligent murder expenses, stated prosecutors appear to have their heads within the sand.
“It actually confirmed their conceitedness in type of their lack of information of what’s actually occurring and, actually, what public notion of crime [is],” he stated. “And regardless of no matter anybody says on the information, it’s fairly prevalent. It simply confirmed their conceitedness that they have been going to get me on one thing.
“It was disheartening for positive — and I don’t imply to get political,” he informed Pirro. “These are their insurance policies which have clearly not labored, that the individuals, the final inhabitants are usually not in help of.
“But, their egos are too large simply to confess that they’re unsuitable and so they can’t reverse what they’ve completed, as a result of that’s a political suicide for them, I assume,” Penny stated.
He stated he was bowled over by how far the town subway system had deteriorated upon his return from lively army obligation when he started dwelling and learning within the 5 boroughs.
“Undoubtedly totally different from what I remembered it to be earlier than the Marine Corps. Earlier than the Marine Corps pre-COVID, it was fairly tame, fairly protected,” he stated. “I assume I used to be fairly harmless to all of the issues that have been happening.
“After which I received right here and this complete new, I assume, notion of what occurred or the notion of security right here in New York is was modified,” Penny added.
Penny, who grew up in West Islip and had two deployments whereas within the Marine Corps, stated he was on his approach residence from lessons at Metropolis Tech in Brooklyn when he discovered himself in the midst of the heated subway scene on Might 1, 2023.
“As soon as the jacket was thrown, he didn’t say something previous to that, at the very least I don’t bear in mind him saying something previous to that,” he stated. “It was — it was actually at that time, too, there was that feeling that vacuum, that I’d by no means felt earlier than in any state of affairs.”
He stated he took off his earbuds as issues shortly unfolded “to regulate the state of affairs” as Neely started screaming and threatening straphangers, loudly making calls for from frightened passengers for quick meals and drinks, and warned that he was keen to kill somebody and go to jail.
“Inside these 15 seconds, I imply, there was contemplation,” Penny informed Pirro. “Ought to I simply wait? Ought to I am going to a unique automobile? Ought to I transfer away? However I noticed the appears to be like on — on the mom, on the, on the varsity youngsters, on the opposite passengers, ladies, kids.
“The threats have been imminent and one thing needed to be completed,” he stated. “[Passengers] have been holding one another and simply — and other people have been caught to their chairs. They felt pinned, and I felt pinned. I felt nervous, I felt scared.”
He stated that’s when he determined to behave.
“After we first get to the bottom, he lands on my chest. He knocks the wind [out of] me. I hit my head on the … subway ground,” Penny informed Pirro. “There’s a second of calm. A really feel of a rigidity in his physique.
“It’s virtually like he was shocked that somebody did one thing. And that lasted like a second or two. And I’d — I used to be — in that second or two, I hoped that that might be it,” he stated. “Didn’t occur… [Neely] planted his ft on his floor and arched again. He was in a position to like carry me up and pedal his ft.”
Penny, who known as Neely “terribly sturdy,” stated he wrapped his legs round him and held on — sensing the vagrant’s energy got here partially from smoking the artificial drug Ok-2.
“I look over my shoulder and one of many issues I say is, ‘the place are the police?’ I’m exhausted, I’m drained,” he stated. “I used to be swimming a mile a day and I used to be nonetheless, couldn’t imagine that his stage of endurance.
“In some unspecified time in the future the beating ended” and police arrived — however didn’t inform him Neely had died when detectives later introduced him in for questioning, he stated.
Penny was later indicted on manslaughter and criminally negligent murder within the case. On Friday, with a jury hopelessly deadlocked on the highest cost, prosecutors requested that the manslaughter rely be tossed for jurors to deliberate solely on the negligent murder cost.
On Monday the jury acquitted Penny on that cost.
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