{"id":1582,"date":"2026-06-19T11:33:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T11:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=1582"},"modified":"2026-06-19T11:33:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T11:33:48","slug":"jiu-jitsu-champion-pleads-not-guilty-in-alleged-assault-of-off-duty-maui-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=1582","title":{"rendered":"Jiu-jitsu champion pleads not guilty in alleged assault of off-duty Maui officer"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<section>\n<p>PUKALANI (HawaiiNewsNow) &#8211; A four-time Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu world champion pleaded not guilty Thursday to assaulting an off-duty Maui police officer in a dispute that began over baby ducks.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=1580\">City breaks ground on $85M upgrades at Kailua wastewater treatment plant<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Penny Thomas, 46, stayed silent as her attorney, Erik Johnson, entered the plea before Judge Christopher Dunn.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEnter a not guilty plea and invoke her right to a jury,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas, a fourth-degree black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, is accused of punching Maui police Lt. Jan Pontanilla multiple times in the face in front of Pontanilla\u2019s home in Pukalani in April.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cI still have sleepless nights because of this incident. I can still see her face. Her eyes looking at me down,\u201d said Lt. Pontanilla\u2019s mother Diane.<\/p>\n<h2>Dispute began over baby ducks<\/h2>\n<p>Diane said Thomas lives down the street from them and that Thomas\u2019 daughter was feeding baby ducks outside their home one day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI said, \u2018Were you folks, were you the kids that were handling the baby ducks the day before?\u2019 And she told me, \u2018Yes.\u2019 I said,\u201d Okay, just to let you know that they\u2019re weak, they\u2019re newborn, and that the mama may abandon them if you carry them and they may die.\u2019 So, the girl just said, \u201cOkay,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>She said she thought it was a harmless conversation until about 45 minutes later.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=1578\">Parking rates increase at Honolulu airport<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis lady pulls up with her car and she\u2019s screaming and swearing at me, \u2018Who the F do you think you are,\u2019\u201d said Diane.<\/p>\n<p>The Pontanillas said their daughter Jan heard the commotion and ran outside and tried to calm Thomas down.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe turned around, and from there, the lady swung, and she used physical force. Her right hand was the first one that struck my daughter in the temple. Then she swung her left hand, which struck my daughter on her right side of the face, and then the right side again, using her right hand. My daughter said, \u2018Calm down. I am a police officer.\u2019 Her reaction was, which was instant, \u2018I don\u2019t give an F if you\u2019re a cop\u2019 and she swung again,\u201d said Andy Pontanilla, the officer\u2019s father.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas was arrested for assault against a police officer. <\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Prosecutors charged her with assault in the third degree, a misdemeanor, because Pontanilla was not on duty.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas is out on $1,000 bail.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s a disgrace to the art of jiu-jitsu,\u201d Andy said. \u201cAll those training went down the drain. Her instructor should be very, very disappointed in her. I would not let my kids learn under people like that cause you\u2019re teaching violence before the true meaning of self-defense.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=1577\">What Hawaii can learn from Super Typhoon Sinlaku<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Both Thomas and her attorney declined to be interviewed. <\/p>\n<p>She is due back in court next week.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Penny Thomas, a fourth-degree black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor assault charge stemming from a dispute over baby ducks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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