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Andre Zachery claims that Mr. Penny, who put Mr. Neely in a chokehold on a subway train last year, caused his son’s death through “negligence, carelessness and recklessness.”
Dec. 5, 2024, 4:35 p.m. ET
The father of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man who died on a New York City subway car last year after another passenger put him in a chokehold, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Daniel Penny, the man who choked his son.
The suit comes as a jury in Manhattan is deliberating in Mr. Penny’s criminal trial to determine whether he is culpable in Mr. Neely’s death.
In the suit, Mr. Neely’s father, Andre Zachery, accuses Mr. Penny, 26, of causing his son’s death through “negligence, carelessness and recklessness” on the floor of the subway car on May 1, 2023. The lawsuit, which has no bearing on Mr. Penny’s criminal case, seeks unspecified damages for physical assault and battery.
Mr. Zachery’s lawyer, Donte Mills, declined to comment on the suit.
Thomas A. Kenniff, one of Mr. Penny’s lawyers, said on Thursday that his team remained “focused on seeing Mr. Penny’s criminal case through to acquittal.”
“We have yet to be served with any civil action, but will respond accordingly in due course,” Mr. Kenniff said.
Mr. Penny, a former Marine and architecture student, had left class that May afternoon and was on his way to the gym when he got on an uptown F train in Manhattan. There, he encountered Mr. Neely, who had boarded the train and begun yelling, throwing his jacket on the floor and striding through the car, according to witnesses.
