A four-time jiu-jitsu world champion is heading to trial after allegedly punching an off-duty Maui police lieutenant multiple times in the face outside his home in Pukalani in April.
Penny Thomas, 46, is a fourth-degree black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. According to sources, she appeared before Judge Christopher Dunn on Thursday morning and stayed silent as her attorney invoked her right to a jury trial.
Thomas was arrested for assault against a police officer, but prosecutors ultimately charged her with assault in the third degree, a misdemeanor, because Lieutenant Jan Fontanilla was not on duty at the time. Thomas is currently out on $1,000 bail.
According to Fontanilla’s parents, the confrontation began over something as simple as baby ducks. Thomas’s daughter had been feeding baby ducks outside the Fontanilla family’s home when Fontanilla’s mother approached the girl with a friendly warning.
“Were you the kids that were handling the baby ducks the day before? And she told me, yes. I said, okay, just to let you know that they’re a week old, they’re newborns, and that the mama may abandon them if you carry them. And you know, they may die,” the mother recounted. She said the girl responded politely and the exchange seemed harmless.
About 45 minutes later, however, Thomas arrived by car in a very different state. “This lady pulls up with her car and she’s screaming and swearing at me. Who the F do you think you are?” the mother recalled.
Lieutenant Fontanilla heard the commotion and ran outside to try to calm Thomas down. That is when, according to her parents, Thomas turned and struck her.
“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,” the mother said.
When Fontanilla identified herself as a law enforcement officer, Thomas’s response was immediate.
“My daughter said, calm down, I am a police officer. Her reaction was, which was instant. I don’t give a F if you’re a cop. And she swung again,” the mother said.
Fontanilla’s family expressed deep disappointment over the incident, particularly given Thomas’s background in martial arts.
“She’s a disgrace to the art of jujitsu. All those training went down the drain. Her instructors should be very, very disappointed in her. I would not let my kids learn under people like that, because you teach violence before the true meaning of self-defense,” the mother said.
Thomas is due back in court for her next scheduled appearance.
