New York City Mayor Eric Adams appeared to defend the Navy veteran charged within the dying of Jordan Neely, a homeless man with a protracted felony report who screamed dying threats in a subway automotive earlier than being subdued and choked.
Daniel Penny, 26, faces as much as 15 years in jail if convicted of 1 rely of involuntary manslaughter within the Might 2023 dying. He’s additionally charged with felony negligent murder.
Jurors started deliberations Tuesday after a mistrial.
Neely, 30, who had a protracted rap report, a historical past of psychological sickness and an asset arrest warrant on the time of his dying, he boarded the prepare, threw his jacket on the ground and commenced making dying threats, warning that he was not afraid of dying, going again to jail or spending his life in jail.
DANIEL PENNY RETURNS TO COURT FOR CLOSING ARGUMENTS IN SUBWAY CHOKEHOLD TRIAL

New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams speaks to reporters after a information convention in New York. Adams defended Navy veteran Daniel Penny, who’s charged within the subway automotive dying of Jordan Neely. (AP Picture/Seth Wenig, File)
Penny grabbed him from behind with a headlock, wrestled him to the bottom, and held him down with the assistance of one other passenger. He remained on the scene and spoke to police voluntarily. Neely ultimately died.
“Now we’re on the subway the place we’re listening to anyone discuss hurting folks, killing folks,” Adams stated on the Nov. 30 episode of “The Rob Astorino Present.” “You may have somebody (Penny) on the subway who was responding, doing what we should always have performed as a metropolis.”
“These passengers have been afraid,” added the mayor.
Penny was repeatedly calmed down when Neely, who as soon as carried out as a Michael Jackson impersonator, stopped struggling and solely tightened his maintain on him when he started making an attempt to interrupt free, Penny’s protection legal professional stated. Steven Raiser, to jurors throughout his closing arguments.

Jordan Neely (left) and Moses Harper do their Michael Jackson impersonations outdoors Regal Cinemas in Instances Sq. displaying the Michael Jackson film “That is IT,” Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2009. Neely was killed on Monday, Might 1, 2023. on a New York Metropolis subway after being choked by one other passenger. (Andrew Savulich/NY Every day Information Archive through Getty Photos)
“The federal government wasn’t there. The police weren’t there. Danny was,” Raiser stated. “And once I wanted assist nobody was there. Does the federal government have the nerve accountable Danny as a result of the police weren’t there? Blame Danny for holding out when the police weren’t there?”
Manhattan District Lawyer Dafna Yoran responded, saying that Penny “did not acknowledge that Jordan Neely was an individual” and that she “seen him as an individual who wanted to be eradicated.”
Adams additionally criticized town’s mental health system

Daniel Penny and Jordan Neely.
“You then have a look at the whole failure of our psychological well being system, a complete failure of the times when psychiatric wards have been closed and people who wanted assist simply went out into the road with no security web to just accept them.”
Town medical expert’s workplace dominated Neely’s dying a murder by asphyxiation, blaming suffocation.
Neely had a historical past of assaults on subway customers and different felony habits. In 2021, he grabbed a sock from a 67-year-old lady as she exited Bowery Station in East Village in Lower Manhattan.
Between January 2020 and August 2021, he was arrested thrice: for public lewdness after knocking down his pants and exposing himself to an unknown lady, felony assault for hitting a girl within the face, and felony contempt for violating a restraining order. All three instances have been dismissed as a part of his Feb. 9 plea settlement.
Whereas discussing the case, Adams additionally criticized the media’s use of a photograph of Neely.

Daniel Penny arrives in Manhattan Supreme Courtroom in New York, NY on Tuesday, December 3, 2024. Closing arguments are anticipated to finish at this time in his trial for second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent murder within the dying of Jordan Neely in 2023 in New York Metropolis. subway prepare (Rashid Umar Abbasi for Fox Information Digital)
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“It regarded like he was an harmless boy who was brutally murdered, and he gave that impression. While you have a look at the picture that was getting used, he needed to arrange in folks’s minds that we have been coping with an harmless younger man. boy you realize, only a Michael Jackson impersonator who, you realize, was brutally assaulted.”
Fox Information Digital’s Michael Ruiz and Rebecca Rosenberg contributed to this report.