J.D. Vance has invited Daniel Penny to the presidential suite at a major sporting event
US Vice President-elect J.D. Vance has invited Daniel Penny to be his personal guest at the upcoming Army-Navy football game in Washington, just days after a Manhattan jury cleared the former Marine of racially motivated charges.
New York prosecutors had charged Penny with homicide over a May 2023 incident that ended in the death of Jordan Neely, a mentally ill homeless man. Neely had entered a subway car shouting that “someone is going to die today,” before Penny and two of his friends subdued him.
“Daniel’s a good guy, and New York’s mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone. I’m grateful he accepted my invitation and hope he’s able to have fun. I appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage,” Vance posted on X on Friday.
Earlier reports quoted anonymous sources saying that Vance had invited Penny to the presidential suite at the Washington, DC stadium. President-elect Donald Trump is also expected to be there. The Army-Navy Game is played by West Point cadets and Annapolis midshipmen and is one of the most enduring rivalries in US college football.
Both Vance and Penny were once in the US Marine Corps. Right after the jury returned its verdict on Monday, Vance declared on X that it was “a scandal Penny was ever prosecuted in the first place.”
Penny himself denied being a vigilante or having any racial animus towards Neely, arguing he was only trying to defend the other passengers amid a spate of violent subway attacks at the time. He did not take the witness stand during the trial.
Charges against Penny became a hot-button issue in the US, with Republicans like Trump and Vance accusing the Democrats ruling New York of wanting to criminalize the defense of self and others, while Democrats tried to present the incident as driven by racism and bigotry.
During the trial, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office repeatedly referred to Penny only as “the white man” and claimed he had “choked” Neely, who was black, setting up comparisons to the 2020 death of George Floyd that triggered a wave of race riots across the US.
Bragg also prosecuted Trump on questionable grounds for alleged “hush money” payments, securing a conviction that is currently in legal limbo due to the outcome of November’s presidential election and Supreme Court rulings about executive immunity.
