Broken Record: Jon Jones Is Back In Legal Trouble….Again
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.
Oh wait, you most definitely have.
Heading into his anticipated light heavyweight title rematch against rival Daniel Cormier in the main event of April 23’s UFC 197 from Las Vegas (and mere days after he was given a warning and made a small donation for a previous traffic stop), former champ Jon Jones is back in MORE legal trouble involving driving an automobile.
Appearing on today’s (Mon., March 28, 2016) edition of The MMA Hour, Jones told show host Ariel Helwani that he was recently issued five traffic tickets in conjunction with accused drag racing in a recent stop late last Thursday/early Friday morning.
His official citations were drag racing, an ordinance against a modified exhaust, an illegible license plate, unable to maintain a traffic lane and exhibition driving according to a report from MMA Fighting.
The controversial pound-for-pound king said that he pulled up next to some fans at a stop light, and, not wanting to talk with them, instead ‘jokingly’ revved his engine to the delight of his fans. When the stoplight changed, Jones proceeded and said he was pulled over barely 10 yards later in the 35 mile-per-hour zone:
“I definitely wasn’t drag racing.”
Jones also said that he said some choice words to the officer that he now regrets as he continues to attempt to repair his heavily damaged image before denying any wrongdoing:
“I got emotional and said some things that I probably shouldn’t have said to a police officer. He needed something to justify pulling me over. He fabricated the whole thing that I was drag racing.”
The main ticket in the stop was for drag racing while the four others had to do with alleged equipment violations on his car.
The dominant but troubled Jones is still on probation after he struck a plea deal for his highly-publicized arrest on hit-and-run charges in Albuquerque, New Mexico, last year where he allegedly ran a red light to strike a 25-year-old pregnant woman, breaking her arm in the process.
Many thought he got off easy for the seemingly foolish and dangerous incident, but Jones was soon back in the headlines for a traffic stop where he was supposedly going 75 miles per hour in a 35 mile-per-hour zone, but was given a warning and let off in audio tapes from the Albuquerque Police Department.
Jump to the next page to find out more details about Jones’ latest concerning run-in with the law….
It sounds like this incident is a good deal more serious, however, and it’s not surprising given Jones’ lengthy and sordid past with driving recklessly. He infamously crashed his Bentley into a street pole in New York back in 2012 and was arrested for Driving Under the Influence (D.U.I.) for the transgression, yet a concerning series of similar incidents that don’t seem to be stopping anytime soon have significantly marked an otherwise stellar MMA career.
That includes being suspended by the UFC and stripped of his belt, losing lucrative sponsors like Reebok, and the obvious backlash of perhaps irreparable blows to his overall persona.
Jones could certainly find himself facing jail time if it is found his citations were in violation of his probation; however, after denying all wrongdoing, he doesn’t seem to think it will affect his awaited UFC 197 return in any way, shape, or form, and he also said his court date for the latest incident would be after the fight. The report said it would be on April 5.
Still, Jones seemed to take a bit of a victim role in the interview, noting that the officer didn’t give him a chance to explain himself and was ‘confrontational.’
He also said he had discussed the incident with his probation officer and knew the incident would hit the media soon, so he wanted to circumvent the attention by revealing it himself:
“This is probably gonna hit the media really soon,” Jones said. “I guess I’ll talk about it right now before it comes out anywhere else. You can hear it first from me.”
Taking Jones’ long and concerning history with traffic violations, it shouldn’t be any surprise that he was treated that way by an officer looking to protect the public from needless acts of reckless driving like drag racing.
And that is and will apparently continue to be the problem with “Bones,” because he’s been nothing but amazing and peerless inside the cage while trending towards being an absolute trainwreck outside of it.
He’s back in trouble yet again, and while the facts of the matter will presumably come out at his latest court date, the main concern with Jones now has to be if he can stay out of jail long enough to defend his title if he does in fact regain it from Cormier in less than four weeks’ time.
Based on the way he’s appeared to act as if the law doesn’t apply to him, the odds might suggest he won’t be able to.
