An alleged member of the Gilbert Goons was arrested again just hours after being sentenced to three years of probation for an assault linked to the Arizona teen gang.
Jacob Pennington, 20, was arrested on suspicion of underage drinking on the same day he was sentenced for an assault in Gilbert.
Pennington is believed to be part of the Gilbert Goons, the name given to a group of teenagers and young adults who have terrorized suburban Phoenix for the past two years.
The teens’ alleged reign of violence, which included armed robberies and dozens of assaults at parties and parking lots – several with brass knuckles – culminated in the fatal beating of 16-year-old Preston Lord at a Halloween party on the 28th. October 2022.
Pennington has not been charged in connection with Preston Lord’s death.
Jacob Pennington, 20, was arrested on suspicion of underage drinking on June 13, the same day he was sentenced for a 2022 assault in Gilbert.
This month, Pennington has appeared in court twice in connection with two different cases: once on June 10 for an assault related to an incident that occurred in 2023.
Three days later, on June 13, Pennington was sentenced to three years of supervised probation for an assault in 2022 and was arrested that same day for underage drinking.
He was in a car that had been stopped for a criminal traffic violation near Lindsay and Elliot roads around 10:45 p.m.
Gilbert police told Fox10, “Evidence was observed indicating that Pennington had consumed an alcoholic beverage.”
“Upon completion of the investigation, Jacob Pennington was arrested and booked into the Gilbert-Chandler Unified Facility for ARS 4-244.41, underage alcohol consumption, a class 2 misdemeanor.”
After his latest arrest, the Maricopa County Prosecutor’s Office filed a petition to revoke his probation sentence.
The construction cases against him came after the Chandler Unified School District in Arizona was sued for dozens of parents who claim their children have been harassed, seriously injured, expelled from the country and even committed suicide by the gang.
Pennington’s mother, Alisha Tidwell, denied that her sons, Jacob and his younger brother, Noah, were involved in teenage violence when approached by DailyMail.com, saying “none of that is true.”
“I’m not worried,” she added. “If I didn’t know who my son was, I would be.”
DailyMail.com revealed how the youth gang ran amok in the Arizona town before Preston Lord’s death in October.
It is considered one of the best places in the United States to raise children, but the murder of 16-year-old Preston Lord highlighted a troubling problem of teen violence in suburban Arizona.
However, Jacob admitted to police that he was part of the Goons in January, claiming the name originated from a Snapchat group, according to police documents.
The group was not officially designated as a gang until May.
After a months-long investigation, sparked by the murder of 16-year-old Preston Lord, embattled Gilbert Police Chief Michael Soelberg confirmed that the group operates as an organized criminal entity.
The boss explained that the Goons were classified as a “hybrid band” because it relies on social media, its members are not of the same race and it has a “lax or absent” code of conduct.
The Goons have been involved in at least 95 assaults in 18 attacks, most in Gilbert, the Arizona Republic reported.
Soelberg previously told DailyMail.com that his department made 29 arrests in connection with the attacks.
Suspects in Lord’s murder, from top to left: Jacob Meisner, Talan Renner, Taylor Sherman, Treston Billey, Talyn Vigil, Dominic Turner and William ‘Owen’ Hines
The Gilbert Goons are believed to be behind an August 2023 attack on Rick Kuehner’s 16-year-old son in an In-N-Out parking lot in Gilbert.
Kuehner claims he had been trying to get Gilbert police and school officials to protect his son from the Goons since last summer after the attack.
Gilbert, a wealthy Phoenix suburb that was once considered the second safest city in the country, has been in the national news for teenage criminals who have allegedly terrorized the community since 2022.
But Soelberg has said that videos of teenage attacks and claims made by alleged victims about his reign of terror were not shared with police until after the fatal beating of Lord 16 at a Halloween party in October in nearby Queen Creek.
Seven teenagers and young men, including several suspected of being the Goons, have been charged with his murder, prompting accusations from some in the community who believe the alleged killers should have been taken off the streets a long time ago.
One father, Rick Kuehner, claims he had been trying to get Gilbert police and school officials to protect his son from the Goons since last summer, when his son was first threatened and then brutally beaten in an In parking lot. -N-Out that It was a place where teenage delinquents went.
In a lawsuit against the Goon suspects, his parents and Arizona officials, Kuehner argues that authorities failed to protect his son and then failed to punish the Goons.