Subway passengers take stand in ex-Marine’s trial over choking death of homeless man

The first batch of passengers testified Monday in the manslaughter trial of a former Marine who choked a homeless man to death last year after the vagrant started threatening passengers aboard a Manhattan subway train.

Prosecutors called up two passengers who saw Daniel Penny, 26, put Jordan Neely into a chokehold in May 2023, with one of the straphangers testifying that the 30-year-old homeless man made her so nervous she nearly passed out.

Ivette Rosario said she was riding the subway home from high school when Neely boarded the train to say he was homeless, hungry and “didn’t care about going back to jail,” according to the New York Post, which is attending the trial.

Ms. Rosario, who was 17 at the time, said she was “scared by the tone by the way he saying it.” She later added that, “He was saying it in an angry tone. … I have usually seen escalations but not like that.”

So far, no evidence has been presented that Neely confronted or touched anyone aboard the train. He was also unarmed during the incident.

Ms. Rosario shot a video of Mr. Penny’s chokehold that prosecutors said lasted nearly six minutes.

A person’s voice can be heard yelling “He’s dying — you gotta let go!” during the encounter, but Ms. Rosario said that she didn’t remember hearing that person in the moment.

Fellow passenger Larry Goodson, 51, also testified that he told Mr. Penny that Neely was going to die because the vagrant began defecating and urinating himself while in the chokehold.

Mr. Goodson added that he did not feel threatened or afraid of Neely during his erratic episode aboard the train.  

Another witness was freelance journalist Juan Alberto Vasquez, who took a video that prosecutors consider the “most critical piece of evidence” for the jury.

Mr. Vasquez’s video shows almost the entire length of Mr. Penny’s chokehold, even after passengers disembarked the train.

The high-profile case has onlookers casting the former Marine as either a lawless vigilante or a good Samaritan, with race adding to the intrigue. Mr. Penny is White and Neely was Black.

But the trial took a turn last week when police body camera footage showed two officers saying the unconscious Neely had a faint pulse when they arrived.

“I feel a pulse,” one officer said, per the Post. A second officer can also be heard saying that Neely “has a pulse.”

Medics gave Neely chest compressions and administered anti-overdose medication Narcan to him once at the scene, but stopped short of giving the homeless man mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

“He was an apparent drug user and he was very dirty,” NYPD Sergeant Carl Johnson testified last week. “I didn’t want my officers to put their lips on his mouth. They could get hepatitis or AIDS … chest compressions would be enough to get him awake.”

Neely died later in a hospital.

The city’s medical examiner determined he died from compression of the neck.

Mr. Penny’s defense team has argued from the outset that their client wasn’t applying enough pressure to kill Neely, and that Neely had high levels of synthetic cannabinoid K2 in his body at the time.

Neely had been arrested more than 40 times in the past decade, including for assaulting a woman in her 60s and kidnapping a 7-year-old girl.

Neely had impersonated Michael Jackson in street performances. His family said he struggled with drug addiction.

Mr. Penny served four years in the Marines before being discharged in 2021. The Long Island native was looking for work as a bartender when the incident happened.

If convicted, Mr. Penny could receive up to 15 years behind bars.