WAILUKU — A Makawao man was ordered to perform 200 hours of community service after being convicted of spraying his neighbors with Mace and damaging another man’s vehicle.

At his sentencing Friday, Dylan Aoki Walsh, 24, was given the option of keeping the convictions off his record if he serves a jail term. He chose not to go to jail and have the convictions remain on his record.

In two criminal cases, Walsh pleaded no contest to second-degree criminal property damage and two counts of third-degree assault.

In one incident, on May 6, 2017, a man and his girlfriend had left the St. Joseph Church Cemetery in Makawao after visiting their son’s grave and were driving up Piiholo Road when a red pickup truck pulled behind the couple and partially blocked them in, said Deputy Prosecutor Annalisa Bernard Lee.

She said Aoki Walsh and two other men get out of the truck and approached the couple’s vehicle. “Before he had time to even do anything, Dylan opened his door and just started beating him with a golf club,” Bernard Lee said.

She said the other two men also were involved. The victim’s girlfriend tried to stop the assault before Aoki Walsh stopped beating the man and began beating his vehicle, Bernard Lee said.

She said the driver’s side window and windshield of the vehicle were broken, causing more than $600 in damage.

Aoki Walsh said he was fixing his board on his truck that day when the other car pulled up. “It just happened quickly,” Aoki Walsh said. “I wish I would have gotten in my car and drove away.”

In explaining what Aoki Walsh did that day, defense attorney Cody Minatodani said Aoki Walsh was “severely attacked” by the other driver and his friends six years ago when they were juveniles.

She said the other man wasn’t prosecuted for assaulting Aoki Walsh, who was badly injured. “Dylan never got justice,” Minatodani said.

About three months after the first incident, on Aug. 4, 2017, a neighbor was in a vehicle with his 72-year-old friend driving on Ehu Road when Aoki Walsh ran in front of their car “and starts screaming and yelling at them,” Bernard Lee said.

Aoki Walsh was trying to get the neighbors to stop speeding, said Deputy Public Defender Ben Lowenthal.

Bernard Lee said Aoki Walsh “took it upon himself to teach them a lesson” and reached into their window to spray them with Mace.

“They both felt a lot of pain and were coughing,” Bernard Lee said.

“He clearly has anger management issues,” she said. “He’s trying to be a vigilante and take matters into his own hands, bullying people, trying to assert himself.”

Lowenthal said Aoki Walsh has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

In letters to the court, family members and friends described Aoki Walsh as “a caring and loving and respectful person,” Bernard Lee said.

“But he also has this other side to him where these victims are seeing someone who is very violent and very scary and very dangerous,” she said.

Speaking in court, Aoki Walsh said, “I’m honestly not a bad kid in any which way or form. All I do is surf.”

Second Circuit Judge Rhonda Loo questioned why Aoki Walsh was carrying Mace if he just wanted the neighbors to stop.

While acknowledging there were different versions of what happened on Piiholo Road, Loo said police found broken glass and a broken golf club shaft and head at the scene.

Referring to Aoki Walsh’s account of being beaten in high school, Loo said: “Two wrongs don’t make a right. If he does something to you in high school, that doesn’t mean you can retaliate.”

“Sometimes you just got to step back and let someone else take care of it,” Loo said.

Walsh was placed on four years’ probation and ordered to complete anger management treatment. He was ordered to have no contact with the victims in both cases and was ordered to write letters apologizing to them.