Outpouring of Support Continues for Marine Vet Daniel Penny as Fundraising Campaign Is GiveSendGo's Second-Biggest Campaign
Marine veteran Daniel Penny’s crowdfunding campaign with GiveSendGo, as of mid-day Monday, has raised more than $2.7 million to help pay legal fees in his upcoming court case.
According to Fox News, Penny’s campaign is already the second highest in GiveSendGo’s history.
Marine vet Daniel Penny’s GiveSendGo legal defense fund is site’s second-biggest campaignhttps://t.co/dKQPg5GvO6
— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) May 21, 2023
The Marine Corps veteran is facing manslaughter charges for his role in an incident with a belligerent homeless man, Jordan Neely, aboard a subway train in New York City.
Penny subdued Neely aboard the F subway train on May 1 after Neely began yelling out threats to other passengers and acting erratically.
In the course of subduing Neely and keeping the other passengers safe, however, Neely lost consciousness and died.
If convicted, Penny could serve up to 15 years in prison even though witnesses aboard the train defended Penny’s actions and called him a hero for intervening and restraining Neely.
Fox News reported that GiveSendGo Chief Financial Officer Jacob Wells said, “It’s the No. 2 ever on GiveSendGo. This definitely has sparked an emotional response with many people.”
At one point, Wells said that Penny’s campaign was raising $1,000 per minute and even overwhelming the GiveSendGo servers.
UPDATE: We have had a big surge in our traffic and our servers were temporarily overwhelmed. We are aware and are a few minutes from resolving the issue. The campaign for Daniel Penny is over 1 million dollars and the money is secure.
— GiveSendGo (@GiveSendGo) May 13, 2023
One of the main differences between GiveSendGo and GoFundMe, the largest crowdfunding site in the world, is that GiveSendGo allows campaigns to be started for people accused of violent crimes while GoFundMe does not.
“It’s so important for people to get a fair shake in our justice system, to be able to afford the most rigorous defense that they can and not just rely on a public defender that’s overworked,” Wells said, and Fox reported that Wells and his sister Heather Wilson started the site as a Christian alternative to GoFundMe.
The site also hosted fundraisers for Kyle Rittenhouse, and the most successful campaign to date was the one set up for the 2022 “Freedom Convoy”, wherein which Canadian truckers protested Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s draconian COVID-19 policies.
The funds raised for Penny, according to his fundraiser website, “will be sent to and managed by the law offices of Raiser & Kenniff, P.C.”
Penny’s attorney is Thomas Kenniff.
The Marine veteran is facing an uphill battle. The case could be difficult for Penny as many in the media, and even the mayor of New York City himself has brought the topic of race into the equation.
Mayor Eric Adams said, in a speech on May 10, “One of our own is dead. A black man, black like me — a man named Jordan, the name I gave my son, a New Yorker who struggled with tragedy, trauma and mental illness, a man whose last words were to cry for help, a man named Jordan Neely.”
In an interview with the New York Post, Penny pushed back against the race narrative and said, “This had nothing to do with race. I judge a person based on their character. I’m not a white supremacist. I mean, it’s, it’s a little bit comical. Everybody who’s ever met me can tell you, I love all people, I love all cultures.”
Penny’s attorney Thomas Kenniff told the Post, “I can tell you that the threats, the menacing, the terror that Jordan Neely introduced to that train has already been well documented. I don’t think it’s going to even be controverted. There are numerous witnesses from all different walks of life who have absolutely no motive to do anything other than to recount what actually happened. They are uniform in their recollection of events.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, however, has decided to charge Penny with second-degree manslaughter in the killing.
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