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As if there wasn’t enough drama in Daniel Penny’s manslaughter case, a wild scene unfolded in the hallway outside the courtroom on Thursday.
As the court began to take a morning break and folks were waiting to be ushered out, a supporter of Jordan Neely – the man who died after Penny restrained him in a chokehold on an F train – started speaking loudly in the gallery, prompting a court officer to tell him to save his conversation for the hallways outside the courtroom.
Instead of politely heeding the officer’s direction, the supporter escalated the situation.
Once in the Manhattan Supreme Court hallways, the man started shouting at the officer, “f–k your rules.”
The defiant Neely acolyte then boldly continued to rant and scream at the officer of the court, who kept his cool and composure as a scrum formed around them.
The verbal altercation continued for a few minutes before he finally left.
The unhinged outburst was part of a pattern of disruptive behavior on day three of the manslaughter trial.
Earlier, a woman in the gallery broke down sobbing during bystander witness Moriela Sanchez’s testimony and had to be escorted out. But her wailing could be heard from the courtroom.
Another audibly cried when a photo of Neely was shown to jurors.
It prompted Judge Maxwell Wiley to gently remind the audience they are not to “visibly or audibly react. The jury in this case is entitled to that.”
But it’s become clear this entire trial – where Penny, 26, faces up to 15 years behind bars for second-degree manslaughter over the death of the unhinged homeless man — is a circus of activism. Justice is merely an afterthought.
After all, Penny was charged eleven days after the incident – as prosecution-averse Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg folded to the outcry from politicians like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and other advocates, who demanded Penny’s scalp in this racially charged case.
How fitting that the prosecution also called Johnny Grima, a former homeless man and self-described activist working with migrants and the homeless to the stand.
Grima testified that before he boarded the uptown F train that day, he was coming from Tompkins square part where he was “checking on homeless people, doing my rounds.”
He was on a different car and stumbled upon the scene as the train was held at the station. He suggested Penny be put on his side so he didn’t choke while lying on his back. He then testified he tried to intervene by pouring water on Neely’s forehead to rouse the man – but was rebuffed by Penny.
“I already felt some way about [Penny]. I didn’t like him,” Grima said. “It’s something like you know when you have, like an abuser abusing someone and they’re not trying to let anyone near the abused.”
Grima was rather loquacious while being questioned by the prosecutor, but he turned combative, disrespectful and nasty as defense attorney Thomas Kenniff had his turn.
His apparent hatred of Penny worn on his face like a badge of honor, Grima repeatedly claimed Penny “murdered” Neely. That he was “flinging [Neely’s] limbs around carelessly” when describing Penny trying to move him onto his side.
Meanwhile Kenniff got Grima to admit some of the testimony he gave contradicted his earlier grand jury testimony.
But Grima’s appearance was an outrageous display of bias. A man with a troubled past – and obvious an agenda. With shockingly little intervention from the judge.
After jurors left, Kenniff asked the judge to declare a mistrial.
“There’s no longer any way that my client can get anything resembling a fair trial at this point given what has happened over the last few days,” Kenniff said.
I don’t think he can either. Not in this climate.