Daniel Penny says he couldn’t live with the guilt if Neely hurt the subway passengers

New York City Marine veteran Daniel Penny sat down with Judge Jeanine Pirro for a powerful preliminary hearing as jurors found him not guilty of negligent homicide in the subway killing of Jordan Neely.

“He was just threatening to kill people,” Penny said in a clip that aired on “The Five” on Tuesday. “He was threatening to go to jail forever, jail for the rest of his life, and now I’m down and up with him. My back is in a very critical situation…If only I’d let him. go, now turn my back and he’ll just turn around and start doing what he said – to me…to kill, to hurt. “

Penny was arrested in May 2023 after nearly two weeks of questioning and was released following an encounter with Neely, who was high on drugs and threatening to kill people on the Manhattan F train when the 26-year-old architecture student grabbed him on the street. headlock from behind.

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The guilt I had if someone were to get hurt, if he did what he threatened to do, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. And I will take a million name-callers and haters to court just to prevent one of those people from getting hurt, or killed.

— Daniel Penny

Penny described herself as someone who did not quarrel with her. He said all the attention he’s received since the incident — the strong praise from some, the demonization from others — makes him uncomfortable.

“I didn’t want attention or praise, and I still don’t,” she said. “The guilt I had if someone gets hurt, if they do something they threatened, I won’t be able to live with myself. And I will pay a million in court and people will call me names again. people who hate me just to keep one of those people from getting hurt, or killed.”

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WATCH: Daniel Penny speaks for the first time since his release

Penny also opposed the policies of officials such as Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who led the failed case against him, as politically motivated and considered policies that “have clearly not worked.”

“[Policies] that people, society as a whole, do not support, yet their ego is too big to admit that they are wrong,” he said.

Neely had an active arrest warrant and a lengthy criminal history at the time of his death. He had schizophrenia and a substance abuse problem. Three days before his encounter with Penny, a subway passenger had been stabbed on another train with an ice pick, according to an earlier report. A PBS reporter was punched on another train, and more than 20 people were kicked out of train stations in the year before Penny’s arrest.

Daniel Penny arrives at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse in New York City on Monday, December 9, 2024. Jurors continue to deliberate in Penny’s trial for the 2023 death of Jordan Neely on a subway train in New York City. (Adam Gray for Fox News Digital)

It was a climate of fear that terrified the wary travelers. Penny even referenced these other crimes in a voluntary interview she gave to police after staying at the scene.

“He was saying bad things…but these guys were pushing people in front of trains and stuff,” he told detectives. They acquitted him, but Bragg’s office received an indictment 11 days later.

Witness Ivette Rosario, a 19-year-old student, testified that Neely yelled that someone was “going to die that day.”

A screenshot from a bystander’s video showing Jordan Neely being locked up on the subway in New York City. (Luces de Nueva York/Juan Alberto Vazquez via Storyful)

“I was shocked by the voice he was speaking in,” he said. “I have seen the conditions, but this is not the case.”

Neely was free to threaten subway passengers on the day of his death, and it was Penny Bragg tried to send to prison.

Witnesses testified that Neely’s threats were more frightening than a typical subway explosion. They appreciate Penny’s intervention.

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Jordan Neely was photographed before going to see the Michael Jackson movie, “This is It,” outside Regal Cinemas on 8th Ave. and 42nd St. in Times Square, New York, in 2009. (Andrew Savulich/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Penny, a Marine veteran who received a humanitarian award for helping hurricane victims, is a Long Island native who friends described as calm and compassionate during trial testimony. He played lacrosse and was in his school’s orchestra as a child and worked two jobs while studying architecture at the New York City College of Technology following his honorable discharge.

The full interview will air Wednesday on FOX Nation.

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