By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-11-20 16:44:50 | Updated at 2024-11-23 21:30:58
3 days ago
A forensic psychiatrist testified that Jordan Neely had been hospitalized for psychotic episodes over a dozen times and was heavily abusing drugs before his death on a Manhattan train.
Dr. Alexander Bardey took the stand in the trial of Daniel Penny, 26, a marine veteran who put Neely in a fatal chokehold when the homeless man threatened passengers on a subway in May 2023.
Witnesses said Neely screamed at passengers that someone was 'going to die' on the train, and Penny said he stepped in when Neely approached a woman with a child in a stroller.
According to Bardey, a defense expert who reviewed Neely's medical history, he suffered severe schizophrenia for years, including believing dead rapper Tupac Shakur was ordering him to 'change the world.'
Neely also suffered 'paranoid fears that people want to hurt him,' 'grandiose delusions that people are jealous of him', and reported hearing 'the devil's voice.'
Despite the shocking nature of Neely's history, Manhattan prosecutors had sought to bar Bardey's testimony from the trial, and attempted to have evidence of Neely's mental illness and drug abuse withheld from Penny's jury.
The case has become a divisive issue since BLM leapt on Neely's death last year and claimed it was the racist killing of a homeless black man by an overzealous young, white military veteran.
As the case gained national attention, others said Penny is a hero and a modern-day batman who saved dozens of others from a violent criminal on a packed subway.
Daniel Penny is facing manslaughter and negligent homicide charges over the death of homeless man Jordan Neely, who he put in a chokehold when Neely began threatening and attacking subway passengers
A subway passenger filmed the moment Penny put Neely in a fatal chokehold in May 2023
In his testimony, Bardey said he reviewed thousands of pages of Neely's medical records dating back to 2015.
Bardey previously worked for Rikers Island jail, and witnesses said Neely was screaming about his willingness to return to the prison when he threatened subway passengers.
He said he had worked on hundreds of cases involving schizophrenia patients, and said Neel's case was among the worst of his career.
'His symptoms, I would classify as severe,' Bardey testified.
'He describes paranoid fears that people want to hurt him, grandiose delusions that people are jealous of him, said that Tupac instructed him to change the world, and that’s what he was doing.'
Bardey brought up several examples of Neely's severe mental illness, including two occasions he told hospital staff that Tupac was ordering him to 'change the world.'
'When asked to elaborate, he rambled about people changing their hair color and giving out free food,' he added.
The May 2023 incident sparked uproar in America - BLM says it was the racist killing of a mentally ill black man by an overzealous white military veteran
Penny (seen arriving at trial on November 18) has also had character witnesses testify to his nature, including his mother and two Marines who served with him overseas
Dr. Alexander Bardey, a forensic psychiatrist and former Rikers Island psychiatrist, testified that Neely had been hospitalized for psychotic episodes over a dozen times and was heavily abusing drugs before his death
Bolstering the defense's claim that Neely was not a victim in the incident that led to his death, Bardel described the homeless man as 'aggressive and bizarre.'
Cases of paranoid schizophrenia are known to be triggered by a variety of factors, and Bardey said a toxicology report found Neely was abusing synthetic marijuana at the time, which he said may have had a severe effect.
The psychiatrist's testimony came after the defense brought character witnesses to testify over Penny's character, including his mother and two Marines who served with him overseas.
One noted that Penny was the recipient of a Humanitarian Service Medal for his efforts after Hurricane Florence in 2018, reports Fox News.
Earlier in the trial, bombshell bodycam footage from the scene where Neely died was played to the court - shockingly revealing police officers detected a pulse on Neely after Penny released him.
In bodycam footage seen at trial, Penny, left, waited for police to arrive. He told calmly them: 'I put him out,' when asked how Neely ended up unconscious
The footage showed NYPD officers arriving on the train at Fulton Station at 2:33pm, and talking to witnesses and Penny on the subway.
'I got a pulse,' one said. A second police officer confirmed that he too felt a pulse.
Neely was unconscious, lying on the subway car floor. When asked how Neely ended up there, Penny calmly replied: 'I put him out.'
The homeless man was not pronounced dead until he arrived at Lenox Health Hospital in Greenwich Village later that afternoon.
Among witnesses on the first day of evidence was an NYPD Sergeant who testified that none of his team performed mouth-to-mouth on Neely because he was a 'drug user'.
'He seemed to be a drug user.. he was an apparent drug user. He was very dirty. I didn’t want them to get… hepatitis.
'If he did wake up he would have been vomiting. I didn’t want my officers to do that. He was filthy. He looked like a homeless individual. You have to protect your officer,
'I wouldn’t want my officer to get sick if the person throws up,' he said.
The trial is expected to last up to six weeks, and will call upon medical experts, first responders, and other passengers who were on the train that day.
