A psychiatric expert who testified in Daniel Penny’s defense said Jordan Neely had one of the most severe histories of paranoid schizophrenia he has ever discussed.

Dr. Alexander “Sasha” Bardey testified as a witness for Penny, who has pleaded not guilty to charges that he caused Neely’s death when he put him in a chokehold for about six minutes on an uptown F train last year. Penny, who was charged with manslaughter and negligent homicide, has said he tried to restrain — not kill — Neely after Neely boarded the train and started yelling at passengers. Prosecutors say Penny was reckless and ignored Neely’s humanity.

Bardey reviewed thousands of pages of Neely’s medical and psychiatric records, which he said detailed more than a dozen hospitalizations between 2015 and 2021. During that time, he said, Neely often experienced paranoia and delusions. At times, Neely feared that hospital staff wanted to hurt him, while at other times he had grandiose delusions that the rapper Tupac Shakur was ordering him to “change the world,” according to medical records referenced in court and obtained by Gothamist shared.

“He’s trapped in his own head, and that’s what drives his behavior,” Bardey said.

Before the trial, prosecutors urged the judge not to allow the defense to share Neely’s psychiatric records with the jury. They said in court papers that the defense was trying to “smear” Neely’s character “so that the jury will devalue his life.” Penny’s lawyers have described Neely as “seething,” “psychotic” and “not in his right mind that day.” During opening statements, they told jurors that Neely’s behavior was so “threatening” that Penny had no choice but to restrain him.

On Tuesday, Bardey told jurors about some of the patterns he observed when he read Neely’s medical records, which he said showed Neely was diagnosed with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, a mental illness with similar symptoms to schizophrenia that also affects the mood of a affects the patient. He said Neely’s symptoms were worsened by his regular use of synthetic cannabinoids, also known as K2, which he said can sometimes cause patients to become psychotic. Even when taken by people who don’t have schizophrenia, synthetic cannabinoids can still affect the brain days or weeks later, he said.

Records show that in January 2021, Neely told staff at Metropolitan Hospital that he had smoked K2 that day and was “feeling depressed because I don’t have any money.”

“I’m cold and I can’t go anywhere right now because the subways are closed,” he said, according to hospital notes.

Bardey said patients with schizophrenia also sometimes self-medicate with K2 or other medications instead of taking the prescribed medications. In a note from a 2020 visit to Bellevue Hospital, a doctor wrote that Neely refused to take his medications, saying “he didn’t need them.”

“He stated that he had previously been diagnosed with schizophrenia, but he no longer has a mental illness,” the doctor wrote. “The last admission according to his report was (a) few months ago because he had not taken any medication.”

Bardey said it is “obvious” that Neely’s situation was “complicated by the existence of both schizophrenia and a K2 abuse problem.” Neely had synthetic cannabinoids in his system when he died, the medical examiner who performed his autopsy previously testified. But she said it was unclear exactly when Neely took the drugs and how much.

Penny’s lawyers suggested during the trial that Neely’s schizophrenia and use of K2 could have contributed to his death – theories that the medical examiner refuted. But on Tuesday, defense attorney Thomas Kenniff asked Bardey more specifically about how Neely’s schizophrenia and drug use could have affected his behavior on the subway before Penny put him in a chokehold, citing the testimony of several witnesses.

Bardey said a witness’s description that Neely had a strong odor is typical of patients with severe, untreated schizophrenia who cannot take good care of their hygiene. He also said that a witness’s report that Neely’s screams on the train sounded “satanic” echoed notes in his medical records that he had heard the “voice of the devil.”

Bardey answered questions for less than an hour and then slowly shuffled out of the witness stand, telling the judge his feet had fallen asleep. Prosecutors asked him no questions.

Earlier in the day, Penny’s lawyers brought in some of his loved ones to tell jurors about his character, including his mother and two of his former platoon sergeants in the Marine Corps. The defense is expected to call a forensic pathologist to testify later this week. Penny may also testify, although the defense has not yet confirmed whether he will do so.