NEW YORK (AP) — The former U.S. Marine acquitted last month of criminal charges in the death of a man on a New York City subway train is seeking to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the victim’s father.
Daniel Penny’ s lawyer, in a court filing Monday, said his client denies the lawsuit’s claims that the 26-year-old is culpable for civil damages for using a chokehold on Jordan Neely while Neely was shouting and acting erratically on a crowded train on May 1, 2023.
Andre Zachery, in a suit filed last month before a jury cleared Penny in the criminal trial, accused the Long Island native of negligence, assault and battery for placing his 30-year-old son in a chokehold for about six minutes, leading to his son’s death.
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But Penny’s lawyer Steven Raiser, in his legal filing, said “all injuries or damages” were caused by Neely’s “culpable conduct, negligence, carelessness, and lack of care.”
Raiser, in a statement, said Penny continues to maintain his innocence and that his acquittal “underscored New Yorkers’ belief in their right to defend themselves and their neighbors from random violence.”
“We are committed to defending this ill-conceived civil action brought by Jordan Neely’s estranged father with same the vigor with which we defended the criminal case,” he added.
Lawyers for Zachery didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday, but have previously noted that civil court cases have a lower burden of proof than criminal ones.
Zachery seeks unspecified damages in the suit filed in state Supreme Court.
The case sparked national debate, with some hailing Penny as a hero who subdued a threatening man while others saw him as a white vigilante who choked a Black man to death.
A Manhattan jury cleared Penny of criminally negligent homicide. A more serious manslaughter charge was dismissed when the jury deadlocked on that count.
Penny, who served four years in the Marines before going on to study architecture, didn’t testify in his own defense. But he said in an interview after the verdict that he put himself in a “very vulnerable position” in the encounter with Neely yet still felt compelled to act.
