Jon Jones Cleared of Charges: Case Closed for Accident and Threats

Jon Jones Cleared of Charges Following February Incident

UFC heavyweight ex-champion Jon Jones has seen all charges against him dismissed related to an incident that occurred in February. This involved an alleged fleeing the scene of an accident and threats to a police officer. The Bernalillo County, New Mexico, District Attorney’s Office decided to drop all charges on Tuesday, arguing that they had “reason to believe that the defendant’s alibi defense is credible.” An unusual detail is that the charges were filed against Jones twice due to an “administrative error,” resulting in the dismissal of multiple cases related to the same incident.

I want to start by thanking the prosecution for carefully reviewing the facts and, ultimately, vindicating me completely. I have always believed in the importance of truth and justice, and I am grateful that the evidence speaks for itself. The fact is simple: I was never there. I didn’t even leave my house that night, and all the evidence proved it.

Jon Jones

The charges against Jones stemmed from a car accident on February 21 in Albuquerque, his hometown. Police responded to a call related to a semi-nude woman in the vehicle, who claimed that Jones was driving and had left. The body camera footage showed the woman later calling a man who, she said, was Jones, who then made verbal threats to the officer at the scene. In June, Jones appeared to implicate himself as the man on the phone, when he wrote and then deleted from X, “whoever was on the phone with me at first, their timestamp is different. By the time he was acting aggressive on the phone, it was a completely different conversation. I was already in my paranoid and defensive state.” Jones has faced several legal issues throughout his career.

• He was arrested and charged with a felony hit-and-run in 2015, after fleeing the scene of an accident that injured a 25-year-old pregnant woman. He pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of the accident and was sentenced to supervised probation.
• He also pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated charges in 2012 in New York and in 2020 in New Mexico.

Widely considered the greatest fighter of all time, Jones retired from competition earlier this year rather than attempt to unify his heavyweight title against interim champion Tom Aspinall. However, he quickly announced his intention to come out of retirement in the hopes of competing at the UFC event planned at the White House next July.