‘Unfortunate, Tragic, but Not Foreseeable’: Penny’s Defense Tells Jury Marine Vet Is Not Responsible for Michael Jackson Impersonator’s Death

‘They can’t build their case on probability and speculation,’ the defense says of the prosecution.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Daniel Penny, who is charged in the death of Jordan Neely, walks into the courthouse as closing arguments begin in his trial on December 02, 2024 at New York City. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

On Monday, attorneys for the defense and for the prosecution made their closing arguments in the trial of Daniel Penny, the Marine veteran who put a Michael Jackson performer, Jordan Neely, in a chokehold on a New York subway last year. After the defense worked assiduously to plant a seed of reasonable doubt in jurors’ minds, the prosecution called Mr. Penny a liar.     

“We have two sides to this trial,” defense attorney Steven Raiser told the jury in the morning. “We are not equal here in a certain sense, the burden is at this table,” he said, pointing to the prosecution, “not at that table” and he pointed to the defense table, where his client sat, a 26 year old man from Long Island, who was living in the East Village at Downtown Manhattan, studying architecture and engineering at City Tech in Brooklyn, where he also worked as a barback, according to media reports, when he encountered Neely on a Northbound F-train last year.

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