Dafna Yoran, the lead prosecutor in the subway chokehold case against Daniel Penny, once pushed for a lenient “restorative justice” penalty for a Manhattan killer.
Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Dafna Yoran, who urged jurors at Daniel Penny’s subway chokehold trial to convict him of manslaughter on Tuesday, once sought reduced punishment for a Manhattan mugger who killed an 87-year-old over $300 in 2019 under the concept of “restorative justice.”
Matthew Lee, 57, snuck up on the victim, a former Lehman College professor named Dr. Young Kun Kim, from behind at a Citibank ATM on Broadway on May 13, 2018, video shows. The fatal blow, a punch to the head from behind, appears to have occurred off-camera.
Kim was hospitalized and later died from his injuries. Police eventually identified Lee as the suspect and arrested him within a week.
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Kim survived the Japanese occupation of Korea and the Korean War, the New York Post reported in 2019. His son forgave the killer at sentencing in a Manhattan courthouse.
Under a 2020 policy introduced by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., Yoran “saw an opportunity for a transformative outcome,” according to Gothamist, a New York City news site. It was the first use of the program in a homicide case.
“It is just a continuance of the soft-on-crime policies that have permeated our big cities,” said Louis Gelormino, a Staten Island defense attorney who has said the case against Penny should never have been filed.
Kim’s son and daughter-in-law, Jinsoo and Julia Kim, agreed to meet with Lee, his sister and a social worker for 90 minutes, according to contemporary reports. The couple could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.
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“I can’t choose how much I hurt, but I can choose how much I hate, and I choose to not hate you anymore,” Jinsoo Kim told Lee in his victim’s impact statement, preserved online in the Post report. “I forgive you, not just for your sake but for mine as well. There is no healing where there is hate.”
After the meeting, Lee was charged with manslaughter instead of felony murder, reducing his potential sentence from 25 years to life to 10 years.
Felony murder charges are usually filed when someone dies as the result of another felony committed by the suspect. Manslaughter charges involve reckless behavior that results in death.
Lee is currently being held in a medium-security state prison in Otisville, New York, and is eligible for parole in 2026.
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Penny, 26, faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted of the top charge he faces, manslaughter.
Jurors began deliberations on Tuesday.
“The defense here has blamed the system, the police response, everyone is responsible for Jordan Neely’s death except the defendant,” Yoran told the jury as her closing arguments wound down. “The only thing you need to determine here is that the evidence has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had killed Jordan Neely.”
