Who is Daniel Penny? Marine in Jordan Neely NY choke subway death

Daniel Penny, the Marine facing a manslaughter charge in the subway chokehold killing of Jordan Neely, is being “railroaded,” outraged friends and family told The Post Saturday.

Loved ones are angry at the rush to judgment over Neely’s death and those who have branded Penny a “murderer” for the May 1 incident on a Manhattan subway train.

Penny was arrested and later released on $100,000 bail in the death of Neely, a homeless Michael Jackson impersonator who was allegedly acting erratically and threatening before Penny and other straphangers subdued him.

“It’s disgusting. Here’s a young man who served our country. What about the other two gentlemen on the subway who were helping him [restrain Neely]? They haven’t even been named,” said a cousin of Penny’s, Justine Baldwin.

Relatives and pals painted a picture of a “calm” and “inclusive” soul who grew up in a middle-class military family on Long Island — far from being a son of privilege, as his attackers have described him.

“Danny,” now 24, a high-school athlete who joined the Marines right after graduation,  lived out of a van at one point, neighbors said.

He was a “handsome, fun kid who could always be counted on when you needed help,” the cousin said.

Penny and his three sisters grew up jammed together in a three-bedroom home in West Islip with their parents, who later divorced.

Friends recall the Penny house and Danny himself as normal and welcoming.

Videos Penny made as a young teen with local friends such as Devin Marino and Tyler Varley show a group of adolescents shooting hoops on a suburban street and running around the Smith Haven Mall in nearby Lake Grove.

“I knew those videos would pop up one day,” Marino jokingly told The Post Saturday.

He said he met Penny in elementary school and was friends with him through high school.

“Danny was always fun and goofy and never harmed anyone,” Marino said.

“He was always super-inclusive.”

Marino said he spent “the better part of middle school” at the Penny home.

“His family was really nice and had an open door policy,” Marino said.

“He was a great kid,” Tyler Varley’s sister Julia told The Post.

“I’ve known him all my life.”

Danny enjoyed his role as the only boy in the family with three sisters, his cousin said.

“He was always there for his family and his sisters, especially,” Baldwin said.

“Danny has always been calm, he comes from a calm family.”

Penny, whose grandfather served in the US Navy and uncles in the Merchant Marines, was a star lacrosse player at West Islip High School.

He served four years in the Marines and deployed twice, rising to the rank of sergeant before he was honorably discharged in 2021, according to his lawyer, Thomas Kenniff.

Marcia Mulcahy and her husband, Pat, lived across the street from Danny Penny, his father and his grandfather in West Islip for four years.

“Danny was a nice kid, a lovely kid,” Marcia Mulcahy told The Post.

“The family could not have been nicer.”

“Just look at the [fundraiser] to see how people feel about him,” Mulcahy added of Penny’s legal defense fund on GiveSendGo, which had raised $ 1.2 million as of Saturday afternoon.

“We’re all contributing to it. He was just trying to help on the subway. It was obviously a scary situation and it all went wrong. But he didn’t go in there trying to hurt anyone. He was trying to help.”

In the years following his parents’ split and his time in the service, Penny seemed to be finding himself, according to neighbors and his own account.

At one point, he appeared to be living out of his van, said neighbors in West Babylon, where Penny briefly lived with his father.

“He would set up a bed in there,” said one resident, who asked not to be named, and noted the father and son seemed to have a strained relationship.

Penny dropped out of college to spend time backpacking through Central America, he wrote on Harri, a hospitality industry employment website, where he was aiming for a bartending gig in Manhattan.

“Growing up here in New York, I have always been inspired by the ambition and grit,” he wrote.

“After high school and unsure of my future, I enlisted in the Marine Corps in search of adventure, While serving as squad leader on two deployment, I began to realize what I was passionate about.”

Leaving school was “inspired by the novel Don Quixote,” he wrote.

“Don Quixote so inspired by adventure, he leaves his ‘normal’ life to pursue his dreams despite being called a madman. During the travels I rediscovered my love for interacting and connecting with people,” he continued.

“Being able to serve and connect with the most interesting and eccentric the world has to offer, is what I believe I am meant to do.”

Those who knew Penny as a youngster were shocked to see the turn his life has taken.

Barbara Harcourt met Penny in 2015, when the young lacrosse player earned an MVP award during the annual Dan Daly Cup competition in Uniondale, which honors Harcourt’s uncle.

“Oh my, good Lord,” she said, when told the man at the center of the political firestorm over Neely’s death was the same kid she helped recognize.

“I’m going to pray for him.”