One of the two men who helped the Marine veteran, Daniel Penny, restrain the homeless Michael Jackson impersonator, Jordan Neely, on a New York subway last year, testified during Mr. Penny’s closely watched manslaughter trial on Tuesday.  

“I jumped in and tried to help,” Eric Gonzalez told the jury at Manhattan criminal court, where the trial of Mr. Penny entered its fourth week on Tuesday. 

The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, has charged the 26-year-old from West Islip on Long Island with second-degree manslaughter and negligent homicide, after Mr. Penny put Neely, who was 30 years old, in a fatal chokehold on a Northbound F-train in May 2023. Mr. Penny has pleaded not guilty, insisting he had acted to protect his fellow passengers from Neely, who had been behaving erratically and aggressively when he boarded the subway at the Second Avenue stop beneath Manhattan’s East Village.

A video, recorded by freelance journalist Juan Alberto Vazquez, who was in the same train car as Mr. Penny and Neely, shows two other men helping Mr. Penny restrain Neely on the subway floor. One man, the prosecutor said during her opening remarks, was a German tourist who has so far refused to testify. The other man, who can be seen wearing a black cap in the video, is Mr. Gonzalez, 39, who came to the United States at the age of five from the Dominican Republic. 

Camera footage shows that Mr. Gonzalez entered the Broadway-Lafayette train station, which is located in Downtown Manhattan, at 2:23pm. According to his testimony, Mr. Gonzalez saw a commotion on the platform, and when he looked inside the train, which was being held at the station with open doors, he saw Mr. Penny and Neely lying on the subway floor, with Mr. Penny wrapped around Neely in a tight embrace.

“I was on my phone not paying attention, then I saw two individuals on the floor.” Mr. Gonzalez told assistant district attorney, Dafna Yoran, who is prosecuting the case on behalf of Mr. Bragg. Visibly nervous, he added that the two were a “caucasian white man”, later identified as Mr. Penny, and “an African American man,” who was later identified as Neely. He described Neely’s clothing as “that of a vagrant.” 

“Everyone was frantic, insane,” he told the prosecutor on Tuesday, adding  that people on the platform were saying, “call the cops, call the cops.” So Mr. Gonzalez decided to help. He approached Mr. Penny, who was holding Neely in a chokehold.  

“I made my presence known to Daniel Penny by waving my hand in Daniel Penny’s face,” said Mr. Gonzalez. “I said I’m gonna grab his hands so you can let go… I was giving him an alternative to get his arm away from his neck.” He elaborated that he ultimately took the initiative  and “just went in” and “held Jordan Neely by the wrist.”

The prosecutor asked him, “did you continue saying things to the defendant as you were holding Jordan Neely’s wrist?” 

“There was another time I told him you can let go, I’m holding onto him,” Mr. Gonzalez replied. 

But Mr. Penny, as the video recorded during the incident, did not let go of the street performer’s neck, and Neely kept struggling to break free. Mr. Gonzalez told the jury when Neely tried to free himself from his grip, he used his legs to restrain him. 

“He broke my grip, as he shifted his body from one side to the other. I put my leg over one of his arms and I held the other,” Mr. Gonzalez said, referring to Neely.  

“What did it look like he was trying to do?” Ms. Yoran asked.

“He was trying to escape,” Mr. Gonzalez responded. He went on to explain an exchange with another witness, who testified last week, Larry Goodson, as the Sun reported. 

Mr. Goodson, who had been riding on the train, had testified that he told Mr. Penny that it appeared Neely was defecating on himself and if that was the case, Mr. Penny needed to let him go or he would kill him. “I said if he’s defecating or urinating on himself, you’re going to let him go because you’re going to kill him,” Mr. Goodson testified last week. 

Witnesses’ testimony differs about whether Neely’s body did a pre-mortem evacuation. One witness who testified last week said that Neely, upon first entering the train, already smelled so strongly of feces that the stench was overwhelming. And in his testimony on Tuesday, Mr. Gonzalez said that he told Mr. Goodson, the “poop stain” on Neely’s pants was “was a dry stain” and that the street performer had not soiled himself during the struggle, which could be an indication that he was dying.

“I was frustrated,” Mr. Gonzalez admitted. Mr. Goodson “was facetiming his wife, instead of calling (for help/the police).” Last week, Mr. Goodson told the jury that he had called his wife because she was in the military and had experience with chokeholds and he was asking her for advice. Now Mr. Gonzalez testified that he told Mr. Goodson that Neely was still breathing, “just to shut him up.”

According to Mr. Gonzalez, he let go of Neely, when he felt his body go limp.  “I was the first to let go… Because his body went limp,” he said.  After Mr. Penny disentangled himself, Mr. Gonzalez said he felt for a pulse and tried to get a response out of Neely by shaking him. He then turned him over on his side, to place him into a recovery position, something he said he learned in high school. 

“I tried to shake him… I put him on his side… I felt a faint pulse… I was scared. Scared that a person could die…Then I left,” Mr. Gonzalez said.   

He left before the police arrived, and only learned from the evening news, he said, that Neely had passed away. 

The next day, one of his coworkers showed him the video, which had gone viral, and where he could be seen restraining Neely. The exact profession of Mr. Gonzalez was not quite clear; he told the prosecutor he works “as a uniform room manager” and makes “sure that employees are properly attired.”

After Mr. Gonzalez learned that Neely had died, he went into hiding.  “I was scared,” he said on Tuesday. “I took as much vacation as I could… I went into hiding in other words… I felt scared about getting pinned for a murder charge.” 

Officers from the New York police department, he said, “found me a week later” and Mr. Gonzalez met with the district attorney’s office. Then he lied to the assistant district attorney.    

“I lied to the ADA,” he testified. “I told them everything that went down as if I was there,” meaning he put himself in the train car, saying he had been on the train with Neely and Mr. Penny, instead of telling them that he entered the scene, once the train had already arrived at the next station. And he told the district attorney that Neely struck him.

“I fabricated a story to the ADA,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “I lied to the ADA… I told the ADA that as things were transpiring I was there on site. When everything went down. So I told the ADA that Neely had struck me first.” 

When asked why he lied, he said he was afraid of getting “pinned for a murder charge,” and made up the story, “so people could see that in some sort of way I was justifying my actions.”

Defense attorney Steven Raiser, who led the cross examination,  reminded the witness that he had told the assistant district attorney, “You had to move back in your seat because you thought Neely was gonna hit someone.” 

And Mr. Gonzalez lied even more. He also told the assistant district attorney that Neely was still alive and “breathing” when he left the scene. Ms. Yoran asked him why he thought lying about Neely being alive, would help him. 

“Because I didn’t see a man die,” Mr. Gonzalez responded, and added that he was and still is scared. “I’m scared for myself, scared for my family.”  

It’s questionable how much of Mr. Gonzalez’s testimony the jury will consider, knowing he’s an admitted dissembler. The jury also learned that Mr. Gonzalez and the district attorney signed a non-prosecution agreement, under which the district attorney agreed not to press charges against Mr. him. 

Under cross examination, defense attorney Steven Raiser asked if Mr. Gonzalez was promised anything by the district attorney’s office.    

“That what I said wouldn’t be used against me,” Mr. Gonzalez replied. 

More witnesses testified on Tuesday, among them the two EMT’s who rushed to the scene and tried in vain to save Neely’s life and the paramedic who drove the ambulance to the hospital, where Neely was pronounced dead shortly after he arrived. They all testified that Neely had no pulse when they found him. 

Prosecutors also introduced a timeline, based on video footage recorded by witnesses and the body camera footage recorded by police officers. The timeline clarified that Mr. Penny did indeed hold the chokehold for at least five minutes and fifty three seconds. Furthermore, the jury learned that the police was not called until 3 minutes after the train had pulled into the station and that it took the officers roughly seven minutes to get to the scene, meaning they arrived about ten minutes after the subway doors had opened at the Broadway-Lafayette station, and roughly five minutes after Mr. Penny had let go of Neely’s neck.  

There is no court on Wednesdays, as the judge attends to other matters. The trial will resume on Thursday.