The Manhattan prosecutor who pressed jurors this week to convict Daniel Penny within the subway chokehold demise of Jordan Neely as soon as used a restorative justice program to safe a lowered sentence for a brute who killed an aged professor throughout a mugging on the Higher West Facet six years in the past.
Matthew Lee, 57, was initially dealing with a 25 year-to-life sentence on homicide prices when he attacked beloved Lehman School teacher Younger Kun Kim, 87, from behind and snatched cash the sufferer had withdrawn from an ATM on Could 13, 2018.
Kim resisted and, throughout an ensuing wrestle, fell and hit his head – dying days later from bleeding in his mind as Lee fled with $300 earlier than he was captured.
Prosecutor Dafna Yoran, who dealt with Lee’s case, negotiated to scale back the potential life sentence to a mere 10 years behind bars after the assailant participated in a restorative justice program initiated by then-Manhattan District Lawyer Cy Vance Jr.
It was the primary time the Manhattan DA’s workplace had used this system – designed to encourage victims and their households to interact immediately with the one that wronged them – for a murder case.
As a part of his plea settlement, Lee had a face-to-face assembly with the sufferer’s son within the presence of a mediator forward of his December 2019 sentencing.
Penny — a Marine veteran from Lengthy Island — faces a most sentence of 15 years in jail if convicted of manslaughter within the demise of Neely, a troubled homeless man, on a crowded F prepare subway automotive in Could 2023.
The 12 jurors – seven ladies and 5 males – heard from greater than 40 witnesses in the course of the four-week trial, together with straphangers who witnessed Neely’s erratic outburst earlier than Penny positioned him in a chokehold for a number of minutes.
Throughout closing arguments in Manhattan Supreme Courtroom on Monday, Yoran implored jurors to convict Penny, 26, for appearing recklessly when he used “an excessive amount of power, for method too lengthy” when he stored an unarmed, mentally ailing man within the chokehold — lengthy after he might fairly have been thought-about a lethal risk.
“What’s so tragic about this case is that although the defendant began out making an attempt to do the fitting factor, because the chokehold progressed, the defendant knew that Jordan Neely was in nice misery and dying, and he needlessly continued,” Yoran informed jurors in her closing assertion.
“The defendant was given all of the indicators that he wanted to cease. He ignored them and stored going till a person died. He have to be held accountable for that.”
Penny’s attorneys have argued that his actions have been “absolutely justified” to guard individuals on the subway from Neely, 30, who witnesses stated was menacing passengers and making threats earlier than Penny took him down.
If the jury finds Penny not responsible of manslaughter however convicts him of criminally negligent murder, he faces as much as 4 years behind bars.
There’s no minimal on both cost, which means that he may be sentenced to probation.
Jurors started deliberations Tuesday.
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