Never-before-seen footage of Daniel Penny’s fatal NYC chokehold released — as teen witness said she was terrified by subway rant: ‘Thought I was going to pass out’

Never-before-seen video played at Daniel Penny's manslaughter trial Monday shows the Marine veteran gripping homeless man Jordan Neely's neck on a subway floor — while bystanders plead with him to "let him go."

The one-minute clip was captured by high school student Ivette Rosario, who testified that she was terrified by Neely's rant aboard the F train that preceded Penny taking him down to the ground.

"I was very nervous, and I thought I was going to pass out because I was so nervous," Rosario, now 19, said in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Rosario's hands can be seen trembling in the footage — which provided jurors with their first glimpse of the deadly May 2023 encounter at the heart of the high-profile case against Penny.

"He's dying – you gotta let go!" one onlooker can be heard saying on the video, shot from the platform just outside the train car. "Let him go," another witness says.

"Y'all gotta hold him down?" a third person can be heard saying.

"Call some cops!" Rosario yells out during the video.

After bursting onto the uptown F train at the Second Avenue stop, Neely, 30, shouted that he was homeless, hungry and "didn't care about going back to jail," Rosario told jurors.

Rosario testified Monday that Neely's rant that led Penny to take the mentally ill man down inside the uptown F train as it approached the Broadway-Lafayette station was so frightening that she "thought I was going to pass out."

The high school senior said that she'd witnessed outbursts on the train before, but that something about Neely's "tone" made it seem like this was different.

"I've been in situations on the train where stuff was said, but not like this," she testified.

Rosario said she pressed her head into her friend's chest and closed her eyes, waiting for the train car's doors to open at the next stop so that she could flee.

Then she heard a thump.

She opened her eyes to see Penny lying on the train floor restraining Neely, his arm pressed around the homeless man's neck.

Rosario testified that she shot the brief video from the subway platform on her cellphone, and then called 911.

Wearing a brown suit, blue shirt and purple tie, Penny, 26, looked blankly straight ahead at a monitor in front of him while the video was played in court.

He remained stoic Monday afternoon as jurors watched the infamous video, shot by journalist Juan Alberto Vasquez, of Penny holding Neely in a chokehold for several minutes — including after Neely appears to stop moving on his own. Neely's dad, Andre Zachery, cried into his hands as prosecutors played the video, and briefly left the courtroom as the jury saw the shocking footage for a second time.

Another witness, 51-year-old Larry Goodson, said he warned Penny that he'd kill Neely if he didn't release him.

Goodson, who took the stand Monday afternoon, told jurors that he noticed Neely defecating and urinating on himself as Penny choked him for several minutes.

"I said if he's defecating or urinating on himself, you're going to let him go, because you're going to kill him," Goodson testified.

"If you don't let him go, and that's the stage his body is in right now, we're going to lose him," Goodson recalled telling Penny.

But Penny — who appeared to be in a "trance" — ignored his pleas, Goodson said.

Goodson, who has ridden the subway for 50 years, also told jurors that Neely was not threatening — conflicting Penny's lawyers' claim that Neely was targeting specific straphangers.

"I was not threatened. I was not fearful," Goodson said. "This individual was not threatening me."

Penny's lawyer, Thomas Kenniff, asked Goodson during cross-examination about whether he may have a higher threshold for fear than other people, after Goodson acknowledged being addicted to crack earlier in his life and spending multiple years in prison. "Your life experience may be different than the ordinary person, would you agree?" Kenniff asked him.

Penny has pleaded not guilty, with his lawyers arguing that his actions were justified to protect his fellow panicked straphangers from Neely.

He witnessed Neely say the words "I will kill," and menacing a woman with a stroller who hid with her baby behind a bench, Penny's defense lawyer claimed during Friday's opening statements .

Rosario testified Monday that Neely did not appear to approach any specific person or touch anyone, and that he did not seem to be carrying a weapon.

Prosecutors say that Penny's initial intent was to help keep passengers safe, but that he went "way too far" in continuing to choke Neely for around six minutes, even after nearly all of the bystanders exited the car.

Penny, who is charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, kept choking Neely for a full minute after he stopped moving on his own, prosecutors say.

He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.