Marine Daniel Penny “never intended to harm” Jordan Neely when he placed the homeless man into a deadly chokehold on a Manhattan subway, his lawyers said Friday.

Penny attorneys argued in a statement that he was acting in self-defense during the fatal encounter with Neely aboard an uptown F train Monday.

“Mr. Neely had a documented history of violence and erratic behavior, the apparent result of ongoing and untreated mental illness,” lawyers Steven Raiser and Thomas Kenniff said in a statement.

“When Mr. Neely began aggressively threatening Daniel Penny and other passengers, Daniel, with the help of others, acted to protect themselves, until help arrived. Daniel never intended to harm Mr. Neely and could not have foreseen his untimely death.”

The 24-year-old intervened when Neely started ranting on the train, threatening passengers and throwing trash at them while asking for food, according to police and witnesses.

Penny held the homeless man — who struggled with mental health issues since his mother’s murder over a decade ago — in a choke hold while two other commuters helped to restrain Neely’s flailing limbs.

Shocking video captured the incident, including the moment Neely, 30, lost consciousness in Penny’s arms.

The city medical examiner ruled Neely’s death a homicide, noting he died due to “compression of neck (chokehold).”

Penny — who was in the Marine Corps from 2017 to 2021 — was taken into custody but released shortly after without being charged.

Neely, who suffered from PTSD and depression, had a long history of mental health struggles and had “numerous” arrests on his record and more than a dozen run-ins with police throughout the years.

“The whole system just failed him. He fell through the cracks of the system,” his aunt, Carolyn Neely, told The Post Thursday.

Penny’s lawyers said: “We hope that out of this awful tragedy will come a new commitment by our elected officials to address the mental health crisis on our streets and subways.”

Law enforcement sources said a grand jury could be called by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office as early as next week to determine whether to bring down an indictment.