Vice President-elect JD Vance (R-Ohio) confirmed Friday that he invited Daniel Penny, a Marine veteran recently acquitted of murder charges in New York, to be his guest at the Army-Navy football game over the weekend.
“Daniel’s a good guy, and New York’s mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone,” Vance wrote in a post on social platform X, replying to a reporter from news nonprofit NOTUS, which first reported on the invitation.
“I’m grateful he accepted my invitation and hope he’s able to have fun and appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage,” he added.
The annual Army-Navy game will be held in Landover, Md., on Saturday afternoon.
His comments come days after Penny, 26, was found not guilty by a jury on a criminally negligence homicide charge. The defendant had originally been charged with manslaughter in the death of 30-year-old Jordan Neely, a homeless man who had been shouting at passengers in a New York City subway station, after he held him in a chokehold for several minutes.
After his acquittal, Penny told Fox News host Jeanine Pirro that he was in a “vulnerable position” and feared for the safety of himself and others in the New York train car at the time.
“He was just threatening to kill people. He was threatening to go to jail forever, go to jail for the rest of his life,” Penny said in the Wednesday interview, adding “And now, where I’m on the ground with him, I’m on my back in a very vulnerable position if I would have just let go.”
Penny will reportedly watch the game from a suite with President-elect Trump, Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth and others Trump tapped to serve in his second administration.
Vance has been openly supportive about the outcome of Penny’s case.
“I have not said much about this case out of fear of (negatively) influencing the jury,” Vance wrote wrote Monday on X.
“But thank God justice was done in this case,” he continued. “It was a scandal Penny was ever prosecuted in the first place.”
Penny said after the verdict that he didn’t expect to receive any “praise” for his actions and added that the attention he’s received throughout the high-profile legal proceedings have made him uncomfortable.
“I didn’t want any type of attention or praise, and I still don’t,” he told Pirro on Wednesday. “The guilt I would have felt if someone did get hurt, if … he did do what he was threatening to do, I would never be able to live with myself.”
The Hill has reached out to Trump’s transition team for comment.
Brett Samuels contributed reporting.
