Jordan Neely’s father is suing Daniel Penny over his son’s chokehold death on a New York City subway car as the jury still deliberates whether or not to convict Penny of manslaughter.
The suit, filed in New York Supreme Court on Wednesday, accuses the Long Island Marine veteran of negligent contact, assault and battery that caused injuries and Neely’s death last year.
Neely’s father, Andre Zachary, “demands judgment awarding damages in a sum which exceeds the jurisdictional limits of all lower Courts which would otherwise have jurisdiction,” according to the lawsuit.
It was filed Wednesday as jurors in Penny’s four-week-long Manhattan trial broke for a second time without reaching a verdict.
Neely, 30, died after Penny, 26, held him in a chokehold for six minutes on May 1, 2023 after the troubled homeless man began shouting at passengers on a crowded F Train, seriously frightening them.
Penny and other witnesses claimed Neely said he didn’t care if he went back to jail and threatened that he was willing to “kill a motherf—er.”
Defense attorneys argued that Neely died from a mix of schizophrenia, drug use, a genetic condition and the struggle with Penny.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, have claimed Penny was “criminally reckless” and went “way too far” while grappling with Neely.
The jury requested Wednesday to again review bodycam footage of NYPD officers arriving at the scene as EMS tried to revive Neely as well as video of Penny’s precinct interrogation interview with detectives.
“I wasn’t trying to injure him. I’m just trying to keep him from hurting anybody else,” Penny told the detectives in the videotaped interview shown to jurors, adding “that’s what we are taught in the Marine Corps.”
Last month, Zachary left the courtroom as jurors were for the first time shown the infamous video of Penny putting Jordan Neely in a chokehold before his son died.
The shocking clip has since been played more than a dozen times inside the courtroom.