Man awarded $12.5M from city now charged in Kapolei gun, drug case
The 38-year-old man who was awarded $12.5 million after he sued the city following injuries suffered in a 2021 police pursuit has been charged in connection with a Saturday afternoon shooting in Kapolei.
On Saturday at about 1:13 p.m., Jonaven Perkins-Sinapati, a convicted felon with more than 40 arrests and citations, allegedly fired a gun in a residential area near the Ewa Makai Middle School.
He was arrested at 91-5431 Kapolei Parkway. Perkins-Sinapati is being prosecuted by the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney’s Career Criminal Division. No one was hurt in the shooting and police allegedly found ammunition and methamphetamine on Perkins-Sinapati.
He was charged today with several firearm and ammunition offenses, third-degree promoting a dangerous drug, and second-degree reckless endangering.
Perkins-Sinapati faces enhanced penalties if convicted since he has prior felony convictions for car theft, robbery and promotion of a dangerous drug.
The city agreed to pay $12.5 million to Perkins-Sinapati, the driver of a car that crashed on Sept 12., 2021, in Makaha during a pursuit by Honolulu police officers who allegedly left the scene, only to return and act like nothing happened.
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His attorney in the civil case, Michael Green, previously told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that Perkins-Sinapati would never work again and could not participate in physical activities with his kids.
Perkins-Sinapati suffered traumatic brain injury and ”has little use of his left arm and hand,” according to Green. He “struggles to speak clearly and displays behavior that is comparable to stroke victims” who lose partial or total control of critical functions, the attorney said
Green told the Star-Advertiser today that ”none of Jonaven’s injuries were ever fake.”
“All of the testing he received by the City’s expert corroborated the deficits he has sustained regarding the speech, the use of his left arm, his ability to ambulate. This was not a drive-by shooting. There was no one shot at,” said Green. “I would call his stroke not severe, but certainly a stroke that the experts say will cause him to need long-term care for the rest of his life. But the City through line and verse verified and checked with their expert that the injuries were real and paid accordingly.”
Seven officers have been disciplined by the department in connection with the 2021, incident, initially described to the public as a single-car accident.
Three Honolulu police officers have been fired, and they, along with a fourth officer, are scheduled to go to trial in June on state criminal charges.