NYC Mayor Eric Adams defends Daniel Penny in Jordan Neely death, slams media

New York City Mayor Eric Adams appeared to defend the Marine veteran charged in the death of Jordan Neely, a homeless man with a lengthy criminal history who shouted death threats in a subway car before he was subdued and choked out.

Daniel Penny, 26, faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of a manslaughter charge in the May 2023 death. He is also charged with criminally negligent homicide.

Jurors began deliberations on Tuesday following a trial.

Neely, 30, who had a long rap sheet, a history of mental illness and an active arrest warrant at the time he died, stepped onto the train, threw his jacket on the floor and began making death threats, warning that he wasn't afraid to die, to go back to jail or to spend life in prison.

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Penny grabbed him from behind in a headlock, wrestled him to the ground and held him with the help of another passenger. He remained at the scene and spoke with police voluntarily. Neely eventually died.

"We’re now on the subway where we’re hearing someone talking about hurting people, killing people," Adams said on the Nov. 30 episode of "The Rob Astorino Show." "You have someone [Penny] on that subway who was responding, doing what we should have done as a city."

"Those passengers were afraid," the mayor added. 

Penny repeatedly eased up when Neely, who was once a Michael Jackson impersonator, stopped struggling and only squeezed to hold him down when he started trying to break free, Penny's defense attorney, Steven Raiser, told jurors during his closing argument.

"The government wasn't there. The police weren't there. Danny was," Raiser said. "And when he needed help, no one was there. The government has the nerve to blame Danny because police weren't there? Blame Danny for holding on when police weren't there?"

Manhattan prosecutor Dafna Yoran countered by saying Penny "didn't recognize that Jordan Neely was a person" and that "he saw him as a person that needed to be eliminated."

Adams also criticized the city's mental health system.

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"Then you look at the complete failure of our mental health system, a complete failure from the days of closing psychiatric wards and having those who needed help just turned over into the street without giving any safety net to accept them." 

The City Medical Examiner's Office ruled Neely's death a homicide by asphyxiation, blaming the chokehold.

Neely had a history of attacks on subway riders and other criminal behavior. In 2021, he socked a 67-year-old woman as she exited the Bowery station in the East Village in Lower Manhattan. 

Between January 2020 and August 2021, he was arrested three times: for public lewdness after pulling down his pants and exposing himself to a female stranger; misdemeanor assault for hitting a woman in the face; and criminal contempt for violating a restraining order. All three cases were dismissed as part of his Feb. 9 plea deal.

While discussing the case, Adams also criticized the use of a photo of Neely used by the media.

"It seemed like it was a young innocent child who was brutally murdered, and it gave that impression. When you look at the photo that was being used, it wanted to set up in the minds of people that we were dealing with a young innocent child that, you know, just a Michael Jackson imitator that, you know, was brutally assaulted."

Fox News Digital's Michael Ruiz and Rebecca Rosenberg contributed to this report.