Uncle of chokehold victim Jordan Neely busted on Midtown pickpocketing charges
A serial pickpocket busted near the Port Authority Bus Terminal identified himself as the uncle of chokehold victim Jordan Neely after his Manhattan arrest, sources told the Daily News.
Christopher Neely, 44, was nabbed while trying to flee after an NYPD pickpocket team recognized him as a suspect for a robbery pattern, the sources said Tuesday.
The suspect jumped a turnstile and then resisted arrest once run down by police around 11:15 p.m. Monday, a source told News.
The suspect, armed with a gravity knife, was carrying a number of credit and debit cards in the names of other people once arrested, with at least one of the cards belonging to a Midtown victim, sources indicated.
He was charged with criminal possession of stolen property, possession of a stolen credit card, grand larceny, resisting arrest, criminal possession of a weapon and bail-jumping from an earlier case, police said.
The man’s rap sheet included some two dozen priors, including charges for rape, robbery and burglary, cops said. The remainder were mostly theft-related, although Neely was also wanted on a grand larceny charge last year — a charge that violated his probation from a prior case.
His nephew’s funeral was held last Friday, nearly four weeks after Jordan Neely died from a chokehold applied by an ex-Marine inside an F train under Manhattan on May 1.
Defendant Daniel Penny, 24, was charged with second-degree manslaughter and released on $100,000 in the death of the homeless street performer known for his Michael Jackson impersonation.
