Daniel Penny celebrates not guilty verdict with lawyers at NYC bar
Daniel Penny and his legal team went barhopping in Manhattan on Monday to celebrate his acquittal in his closely watched manslaughter trial.
Penny, 26, was spotted having a beer with his defense lawyers Thomas Kenniff and Steven Raiser at Stone Street Tavern in the Financial District hours after a jury acquitted him of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Jordan Neely. The group eventually moved on to American Whiskey bar in Midtown.
The Marine veteran and Long Island native would have faced up to four years behind bars if convicted.
Asked how he was doing, a relieved-looking Penny — whose security guards were also in tow — only said, “Great.” He was kept away from reporters by his lawyers.
Kenniff said that Penny was looking forward to getting his life back.
“He’ll be looking to resume, get his life back together,” he said. “The situation like this, we savor the victory but all the harm that has been done to him just doesn’t vanish. That’s true of anyone who is falsely accused.”
Jurors took about five days to find that Penny was not criminally responsible for killing Neely when he allegedly placed him in a chokehold on a crowded subway in May 2023.
The 12-person panel deadlocked on Friday — prompting prosecutors to make the surprise decision to dismiss the manslaughter charge, the top count, and have them keep deliberating on the criminally negligent homicide rap.
“I’m not surprised [by the verdict] in the sense that Day 1 we knew that we believed he would be exonerated because the evidence overwhelmingly supported that,” said Kenniff. “When you’re in the midst of it, five days of deliberation, it would be inhuman not to be nervous, not to have anxiety. Were we surprised by how it came down, when it came down, the moment it came down? Sure. But were we surprised by the result? No.”
Penny and his crew were later spotted downing pints at American Whisky on West 30th Street — where they were also hounded by his security.
