Daniel Penny will be JD Vance’s guest at Army-Navy football game in Maryland | US News

JD Vance, the vice president-elect, confirmed that Daniel Penny, a Marine Corps veteran who was recently acquitted of murder charges, will be his invited guest at Saturday’s Army-Navy football game in Maryland.

Penny will watch the game from a suite alongside President-elect Donald Trump and other figures in Trump’s next administration, including his nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.

“I am grateful that he accepted my invitation and hope that he can have fun and appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage,” Vance wrote on X, confirming the news first reported by the nonprofit publication Notus .

The invitation follows Penny’s acquittal on Monday by a New York jury that found him not guilty in the 2023 involuntary manslaughter of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man with a history of arrests, mental illness and medical problems. Medical evidence revealed that Neely suffered from sickle cell anemia, an inherited genetic disorder that can potentially impair oxygen transport in the blood under extreme physiological stress, a factor that Penny’s defense team argued may have contributed to his death.

The case sparked nationwide controversy after Penny put Neely in a chokehold on a New York City subway train in May 2023. Witnesses reported that Neely was yelling and acting erratically, with one passenger, Juan Alberto Vazquez, telling NBC News at the time that Neely made aggressive statements about not caring about possible consequences.

It will be Penny’s first public appearance since his acquittal and will be a high-profile event with close ties to the military.

Vance was vocal in his support of Penny, describing the charges as a “scandal” and praising the jury’s decision.

“Daniel is a good guy and the New York district attorney tried to ruin his life because he has a spine,” Vance wrote on X.

Penny claimed in a sit-down interview with Fox News this week that he feared for his own safety and that of other passengers during the incident, describing himself as being “in a vulnerable position.”

“The guilt I would have felt if someone had gotten hurt, if they had done what they threatened, I would never be able to live with myself,” Penny said. “I would put up with a million court appearances and people calling me names and people hating me just to keep one of those people from getting hurt or killed.”