Daniel Penny, the former Marine indicted for killing homeless man Jordan Neely during a subway confrontation last month, will be arraigned in Manhattan Supreme Court on June 28, the borough district attorney’s office said Thursday.
The 24-year-old former infantry squad leader will appear before Judge Maxwell Wiley to answer one charge of second-degree manslaughter and another charge of criminally negligent homicide.
If convicted, he could face a total of 19 years behind bars.
A grand jury sitting in Manhattan voted yesterday to indict Penny about six weeks after his caught-on-camera altercation with Neely, a troubled former street performer with a long history of mental illness.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to comment further.
Penny’s attorneys said that although they respected the decision, they were “fully committed” to clearing their client’s name.
“We’re confident that when a trial jury is tasked with weighing the evidence, they will find Daniel Penny’s actions on that train were fully justified,” Steven Raiser, of the law firm Raiser & Kenniff, said in a statement.
Penny — who remains free on $100,000 bail — first surrendered himself to cops on May 12, nearly two weeks after he laced his arms around Neely’s neck during a chaotic confrontation on an F train in Manhattan.
Eyewitnesses have said Neely — who had had scores of run-ins with New York’s Finest — was threatening other subway riders and throwing trash around during a May 1 outburst.
In a series of videos released Sunday, Penny said he felt an obligation to step in.
“If [Neely] had carried out his threats, he would have killed somebody,” Penny said.
Penny seized him from behind, got him in a chokehold and dropped to the floor as he and two other men tried to restrain the struggling 30-year-old.
Neely died due to the struggle, and the city medical examiner later ruled the former Michael Jackson impersonator’s death a homicide.
Penny said he wasn’t trying to kill Neely when he grabbed him, but could not stand by while Neely went off on his fellow straphangers.
Neely’s family has blamed authorities for letting him slip through the cracks of New York’s floundering mental health system.
And they’ve called for Penny to face murder charges.
So has the Rev. Al Sharpton, who after the indictment called Penny’s actions that day a “clear-cut case of vigilantism that has no place in our society.”
“While [the grand jury] should be saluted for this righteous step, we wish the charge would have reflected what this really was: murder,” Sharpton said in a statement, adding that his National Action Network would “continue to monitor this case to ensure this killer is held accountable and there is justice for Jordan.”
