Daniel Penny's sister and childhood friend told jurors in his manslaughter trial Monday that the former Marine was a “calm and peaceful” surfer and close-knit Long Island resident. He explained that he had a reputation for honesty back home.
“People always spoke very highly of him,” Alexandra Fay, who grew up on the same block as Penny in waterfront West Islip, told a Manhattan jury about homeless man Jordan Neely's death. He spoke about a former neighbor who was charged with “recklessly” strangling him. He died on the subway in May last year.
“He was very kind. In fact, he was especially kind…He always spoke openly,” Fay said, laughing at Penny, 26, who was sitting in the defense bench in Manhattan Supreme Court. added.
Penny's sister, Jacqueline Penny, also smiled as she entered the courtroom, but later described her brother as someone who played upright bass in his high school orchestra, was a star on the lacrosse team and “loved surfing.” He described him as a “smart” and “focused” student. It's a hobby. ”
“We had similar friends, similar groups of friends, similar people that we hung out with,” the defense said after prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office adjourned their case Monday afternoon. The first witness called, Jacqueline (nicknamed “Jackie''), testified. .
“He was always very nice to my friends and I was always very friendly to his friends,” she said.
Daniel Penny has a reputation within his family as an “honest” and “calm and peaceful person,” his sister said.
At the end of her 15-minute witness stand, Jackie Penny was asked by her brother's attorney, Thomas Kenniff, “Wouldn't you want to see something bad happen to your brother?''
“Yes,” she answered.
“So you're testifying?” Kenniff continued.
“Yes,” Jackie Penny answered.
Kenniff also asked Penny's sister and childhood friend if they were surprised that Daniel enlisted in the Marines after high school.
“A little bit because he was a very gentle, gentle-minded person,” his sister told jurors, before adding that “he was always patriotic and the men in his family served in the military.” “It wasn't surprising at all,” he added.
Fay, Penny's former neighbor in West Islip, described the Suffolk County hamlet as “a really small town where everyone knows each other.”
“We call this our little 'West Islip bubble,'” she says.
During a brief cross-examination, Fay acknowledged that he donated to Penney's defense fund, which had raised more than $3 million, but the judge struck from the record the part of the exchange in which prosecutors mentioned the large amount.
Penny's team called the first two defense witnesses after the prosecution rested their case, and City Coroner Cynthia ruled that Penny's strangulation was the cause of Neely's death.・The case ended with three days of grueling testimony from Dr. Harris.
Penny's lawyers spent much of Monday poking holes in Harris' findings, which included a video of the fatal May 1, 2023, crash filmed by a journalist who witnessed the crash on the Manhattan F train. It said it was created after reviewing the viral video.
Near the end of his time on the stand, Penny's attorney Stephen Reiser questioned why Harris determined Neely's cause of death before receiving a toxicology report that found Harris had K2 synthetic marijuana in his system. I wondered and raised my voice.
“Yeah, but I've also seen someone get shot in the head and determine that the cause of death was the shot in the head,” Harris jokingly retorted.
“We're not going to wait for the toxicology results to determine that.”
Harris said Friday that the video of the encounter very convincingly shows that Neely killed Neely by strangling Penny, and that the homeless man had an amount of drugs in his system “enough to bring down an elephant.” He testified that he had no intention of changing her opinion even if he had included her.
Penny has pleaded not guilty to second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, and could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charges.
Neely's lawyers have argued that his actions were justified in trying to subdue and restrain him, and witnesses said Neely was intimidating and threatening passengers.
Prosecutors say Penny held Neely for too long, including more than five minutes after nearly all of the straphangers had exited the subway car and 51 seconds after Neely's body went limp. The indictment alleges that he was
The trial resumes on Tuesday.
