Marine vet Daniel Penny defense fund nears $3M in Jordan Neely chokehold death as DA tips hand on evidence

• The prosecution of Marine vet Daniel Penny for a subway chokehold homicide is inching forward in Manhattan.
• A GiveSendGo defense fundraiser is nearing $3M, and the DA has turned over 365 exhibits to his lawyers.

Donations – and evidence – are piling up in the subway-chokehold homicide case against Daniel Penny.

Three months after his Manhattan arrest for the disturbing, caught-on-video death of homeless street performer Jordan Neely, nearly $3 million now sits in Penny's legal defense fund.

And more than 365 pieces of evidence – including police and prosecutor notes from interviews with 30 civilian witnesses, and thousands of pages from Neely's police and medical records – have been turned over to the defense, according to an evidence list in Penny's public court file.

"The average campaign is about $3,000," Jacob Wells, co-founder of GiveSendGo, the Christian fundraising platform, said of Penny's defense fund. "So this is 1,000 times the magnitude of what you would see in a normal campaign."

Lawyers say they'll use the cash to fight charges that the Marine veteran was reckless, or at least negligent, in using a fatal chokehold to subdue Neely, who witnesses and prosecutors say had verbally threatened passengers on a Manhattan subway train.

Money left over will cover the cost of any lawsuits, Penny's defense lawyer, Thomas Kenniff, told Insider.

Neely's family members contend – as do prosecutors – that Penny's chokehold was criminally excessive, continuing for more than two minutes after eyewitness video shows Neely stopped moving.

Lawyers for Neely's family did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but have told reporters they will file a wrongful death lawsuit. Whatever money is left over at the conclusion of Penny's civil and criminal cases "will be donated to a charity with a mental-health purpose to it," Kenniff said.

Penny's top donors reflect how boldface-named, ultra-conservatives have rallied to Penny's side, including GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy ($10,000), Kid Rock ($5,000), and right-wing podcaster Tim Poole ($20,000).

But the bulk of donations have been"forty, fifty dollars on average, and there are many thousands of them," said Kenniff. Many call Penny a hero in their donation posts, and invoke the Marine motto, "semper fi," meaning "always faithful."

"To me, that speaks louder than any single donation from someone with notoriety," Kenniff said of the flood of small and anonymous donations. "It speaks to the grass roots support that Danny is getting and how vulnerable and frustrated people are, that someone who steps forward to protect people finds the criminal justice system turned against them.

Meanwhile, throughout the spring and summer, prosecutors have been steadily turning over evidence to his lawyers, some of which may wind up helping Penny's case.

Prosecutors have, to date, interviewed 19 NYPD officers and two-dozen civilian witnesses — half of whom directly witnessed Neely's death, according to the evidence list.

The list does not show the actual interview notes or name those people who were interviewed. But it does show that prosecutors have interviewed one of the two other male subway passengers seen in video helping to restrain Neely during Penny's chokehold.

The man is identified in the record only as "Eyewitness #6."

The evidence list also includes something called "Eyewitness #6 proffer agreement," suggesting that at some point, this witness was at least offered some kind of deal by prosecutors. The potential deal is not described and, to date, no additional arrests have been announced in connection to the fatal chokehold.

A spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney's office declined to comment on the ongoing case.

The list offers a glimpse into the case against Penny, 24, who remains free on $100,000 bail.

The eyewitness video will be among evidence

Key among the prosecution's witnesses is "Eyewitness #1," who appears to be Juan Alberto Vázquez, the freelance journalist who recorded disturbing, widely-shared video of the chokehold. Significantly, the Vázquez video captured a bystander warning Penny, mid-chokehold, "You're going to kill him."

Eyewitness #1's video is the longest witness video mentioned in the evidence list; a second eye-witness turned over a shorter video and two screenshots to prosecutors.

Body-worn-camera footage from 19 NYPD officers has also been turned over to the defense, the evidence list shows.

Four EMS workers who rushed to the scene have spoken to prosecutors, the list also shows.

Audio from four 911 calls made from the subway car is also a part of the case.

Prosecutors also turned over to the defense a copy of the Marines training manual that Penny would have received as a 17-year-old recruit.

Grand jurors who indicted Penny were shown a copy of the Marine training manual, the list reveals. The manual describes the chokehold taught to all Marine recruits as "non-fatal."

Much of the evidence prosecutors have turned over to the defense involves Penny's own words, including his voluntary statements to the NYPD, and what he said in texts, emails and social media posts.

"I had him pretty good," Penny told officers who recorded his statements on their body-worn cameras on a lower Manhattan subway platform, less than ten minutes after Neely's May 1 death, according to court documents.

"A man was acting irate, dropping things on the floor, saying he doesn't care if he goes to jail, he doesn't care if he gets killed," Penny told officers.

A more formal videotaped statement Penny made to police — filmed with two camera angles — has also been turned over to the defense, the list shows.

The list likewise provides insights into Penny's potential defense.

Included in the evidence turned over to his lawyers, Kenniff and Steve Raiser, are details from Neely's extensive medical and criminal history.

That includes 6,000 files from the city-run Bellevue Hospital, and details from at least four "prior incident witnesses" who had contact with Neely in a criminal context. Penny's lawyers have alleged that Neely had a history of four arrests for unprovoked assaults, according to the New York Times.

Neely had a history of using K2, a powerful synthetic marijuana, outreach workers told the Times. Toxicology and full autopsy reports have not yet been turned over by prosecutors, the evidence list reveals.

The founder of GiveSendGo said Neely's family is welcome

As for Penny's new status as a fundraising millionaire, Wells, the GiveSendGo founder, told Insider that only one other fundraiser on his platform has ever raised more money.

Some $10 million was raised in a GiveSendGo drive on behalf of the families of Canadian truck drivers who stopped working rather than submit to a government COVID vaccine mandate, he said.

Both Penny and the Neely family are pursuing their own idea of justice, he said.

"We would be happy to host a campaign for the young man who passed away, and his family, and the expenses facing them," Wells said.

Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who crossed state lines with an AR-15 during unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he shot three people – two fatally – also hosted his defense fund on GiveSendGo.

Rittenhouse, who was acquitted of all charges in the shooting, raised over $250,000 on GiveSendGo.

"We want to see justice and free speech served, and we don't take a position on innocent or guilty," he said. "What we do support is the American justice system of due process and the right to a defense."

That right to a defense extends to everyone, including some folks that Christian crowdfunding platform sees as, well, un-Christian, he said.

"I'll give one case. There's an individual being charged in New Hampshire for stating racist views publicly. Views we abhor," he said. "White supremacist views."

"We told him as much as we dislike what you say, we're not going to prohibit you from raising money for your defense," he said. "Even the people we disagree with, we love."