NYC NOW - May 18, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: May 18, 2023

Sayfullo Saipov, the man who killed eight people while driving a truck onto a Manhattan bike path in 2017 is sentenced to life in prison, New Jersey's Attorney General Matt Platkin is taking a school district to court over a new policy concerning LGBTQ kids and teens. And finally, Daniel Penny, the man charged in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely on a subway, has received over $ 2.5 million of support through his legal defense fund. The 24-year-old Marine veteran was charged with 2nd degree manslaughter by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. Penny hasn’t entered a plea but conservatives and Christians are coming to his defense. WNYC’s Sean Carlson discusses the case with senior reporter Race & Justice Arun Venugopal.

NYC now. Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Thursday, May 18th. Here's the midday news. Good afternoon on Myon Levenson. The man who killed eight people when he drove a truck into a Manhattan bike path in 2017 may never see freedom again. WNYC Samantha Max reports. Seifolu Sayipov is expected to spend the rest of his days in a highly secure prison in Colorado. He was sentenced to multiple life terms and an additional

260 years. The courtroom was packed with victims for the day-long sentencing hearing. More than a dozen survivors and loved ones of the deceased read statements about the pain Saipov had caused often through tears. They called him a monster and a coward. When it was Saipov's turn to speak, he did not apologize. Instead, he gave a lengthy speech about Islam and praised Allah. Judge Vernon Broderick said he hoped Saipov would one day feel remorse. Jersey's Attorney General is taking a school district to court over new policy about LGBTQ kids and teens. The Hanover Township policy requires teachers to tell parents about their kids' gender and

sexual identities. Attorney General Matt Platkin says the policy adopted on Tuesday night violates New Jersey's law against discrimination. And over school officials say they'll defend the policy. They say it ensures parents get notified when issues come up that could affect a student's well-being. Plattgett isn't challenging other aspects of the policy, such as requirements that schools notify parents when students are suffering from depression using alcohol or being bullied. For today, sunny skies with a high getting up to around 64, tonight mostly clear with a low of around

49, and for tomorrow, mostly sunny skies with of around 68. I'm Sean Carlson. Daniel Penny, the man charged in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely on a subway, has seen a flood of support in recent days, both in the form of money and prayers. The 24-year-old Marine veteran was charged with second-degree manslaughter by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Now, Penny himself has not entered a plea, but as WNYC's Arun Venetabal reports, conservatives and Christians are coming to his defense. He's here to tell us more about it. Hello to you, Arun. Hi. Good day to you.

What kind of financial support are we talking about here? Well, just five days ago, his legal defense fund, which was set up by his own law, lawyers had accumulated $280,000. As of today, it's $2.6 million. Wow. Yeah, this isn't a Go fund me. It's a site called Give Send Go, which bills itself as the number one free Christian fundraising site.

They've hosted fundraisers for defendants in the January 6th uprising in Washington for Kyle Rittenhouse. By contrast, Sean, a fundraiser for Jordan Neely, his raise about $145,000, just under a 10th of what's been raised for Penny. Do we have any idea of who is giving to the legal defense fund for Daniel Penny and why they're giving to it? Yeah, there's some big names in the conservative world who've either given to it or just amplified the fundraiser. The Republican presidential Canada Vivek Ramoswamy. He gave $10,000. He said on Twitter, it's important to restore the rule of law in America. Kid Rock gave the rapper. The podcaster Tim Poole gave $20,000.

And he called Penny a good Samaritan, the same phrase that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis used for Daniel Penny. But there's also tens of thousands, like 50,000 small donors. Some give because Daniel Penny's a Marine, and they think that what he did was right, that he saved lives by restraining Jordan Neely. And then there's others who donate because they say they hate New York or they hate district attorney Alvin Bragg. But this thing is growing just today. Nikki Haley called on Governor Kathy Hokel to pardon Daniel Penny, so it's going to continue to escalate. Two and a half million dollars in growing. That is a lot of money, Arun. Yeah. Now, I don't really have any idea how much legal defense in this kind of situation costs, but I imagine all this money is not

going to the lawyers, right? Right. I mean, it was set up by the lawyers, but they don't expect the criminal defense to cover it to cost that much. This is going to go towards the criminal proceedings as well, as any civil lawsuit that he's going to be hit with or likely to be hit with by the family of Jordan Neely. And beyond that, the fundraising page says that they're going to donate the balance to a mental health advocacy program here in New York City. Given the outside showing here, nearly $2.6 million raised and 50,000 donors, are there any other takeaways, including for prosecutors themselves? What does this mean? Yeah, it's a lot of noise, right? A lot of attention. And one legal scholar I spoke to, his name is Bennett Gershman, he's at Pace University.

He said prosecutors, they really need to be thick-skid, right, because they need to shut out all that noise and just stick to the facts. On the other hand, we are discussing perceptions of crime and danger and whether self-defense was necessary. And a former federal prosecutor, Ross Sandler, who I spoke to, he's at New York Law School. He told me the crimes we hear about in the subways, they're often really heavily publicized. and that publicity is likely to work to Daniel Penny's advantage, as will the fact that the Supreme Court has fully embraced the constitutional right to gun availability and self-defense, you know, Second Amendment rights, including right here in New York State.

It's WNMIC's Arun Venetipal. Arun, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you, Sean. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines. and occasional deep dives, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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