Daniel Penny was spotted sharing a tender moment with his mystery girlfriend a day before before being found not guilty in the 2023 death of a New York City homeless man.
The pair were seen hugging and holding hands Sunday at a popular brunch spot in Manhattan, hours before the 26-year-old found himself acquitted of all charges in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely.
Seated outside at a restaurant in the West Village, Penny and the unidentified woman appeared to speak in-depth – just two days after the Marine vet saw a separate manslaughter charge dismissed in Manhattan Criminal Court.
The two kept a low profile at the eatery, inching close to each other at a point to share an embrace. Each wore matching dark sunglasses and coats.
Penny was also seen clutching a single rose with his armed wrapped around the woman.
He had faced 15 years in prison if convicted Friday on the manslaughter charge.
A lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide, however, still remained, after jurors remained deadlocked over whether the West Islip man caused 30-year-old Neely’s death.
On Monday, the 12-person panel found him not guilty – causing progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Chivona Newsome, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Greater New York, to express disdain.
Both painted Penny as a criminal who cheated justice, joining an array of activists, anchors, and politicians in doing so.
Ocasio-Cortez, in a resurfaced clip that’s gone viral, claimed straphangers should be scared at the concept of Penny as a free man.
‘If we do not want violence on the subways and the point of our justice system is a level of accountability to prevent a person who does not have remorse about taking another person’s life,’ the the 35-year-old representative for parts of the Bronx and Queens said.
‘I mean even people who have engaged in manslaughter or have taken a life accidentally express remorse.’
‘The fact that a person has expressed no remorse indicates a risk that it may happen again,’ she continued, with the video filmed during the trial viewed more than 730,000 times.
‘If we do not want to unleash that level of violence, then we should exert a level of accountability to prevent that from happening,’ the Bronx native concluded.
Newsome, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, played the race card, arguing both on TV and outside the Manhattan courthouse where protesters convened to call Penny a murderer the decision was a sign of institutionalized racism.
‘Even as when his body went limp, he was still viewed as a criminal,’ she told NewsNation’s Dan Abrams of Neely, who was black.
‘Jordan Neely was in a chokehold for over four minutes, turning purple… And people still saw him as a harm,’ she explained.
