PED Expert Believes Jon Jones’ Failed Drug Test ‘Doesn’t Make Sense’

Back before 2008, Angel Heredia was supplying performance enhancing drugs to make sure that the athletes who were on top of their sports, stay on top. We’re talking even Olympic-level athletes. He was eventually forced to cooperate in court by becoming a chief witness for the U.S. Justice Department. All this to say, Heredia knows this enhancement game in-and-out. Now, he has joined Jon Jones’ defense team as a legal adviser and spoke to Submission Radio on why he thinks his testing procedure doesn’t add up from an expert’s perspective.

“If somebody takes a designer [steroid] and they pretty much identify any of it’s metabolites, they would pretty much know what steps to follow next, and eventually they will break it down and they will come out with the name of the structure that was not identifiable at the time. So, at this point there’s nothing like that. Pretty much, they’re accusing [Jon Jones] of one particular metabolite. They’re not accusing him of six different metabolites. One single metabolite. And that metabolite is the one that stays up to seven weeks. So frankly, to me, it’s backwards. It doesn’t make any sense.” 

Man USADA really did a number on some of these guys

— BONY (@JonnyBones) May 15, 2016

“The way the evidence points out, [Jon Jones] was tested many times. You have to understand, he was not only tested, he was flag tested, red flag tested. Which means, they would use every possible testing they have in their hands. In other words, they would do CR testing for synthetic testosterones. They would implement the new testing protocol for the Turinabol. They would implement the bio-passport. They would implement all kinds of stuff. So really, trying to make something in the last 18, 17 days, it doesn’t make sense to me. I really think it’s either a supplement has been cross-contaminated or perhaps, or a case of a bad protocol or testing analytical procedure. So we have to sit down and wait. It’s kind of early to say yet, but it doesn’t point out to me that he was taking anything that would flag the test or would take any masks to pass the test.”

Just like that, the wild Jon Jones roller coaster ride of testing and evidence keeps barreling forward, but he is innocent until proven guilty. He passed his blood test, failed his urine test, a California State Athletic Commision Executive Director said the same thing Heredia did, it simply doesn’t make sense. We are still awaiting Jon Jones’ B sample, but Heredia already thinks there is enough suspicion to claim USADA lacks credibility.

“I don’t want to say it will come out negative, I don’t want to say that it would come out positive, we have to sit down and wait, and we certainly will know. But like I said, it’s kind of weird that a metabolite that would stay up to seven weeks, a guy comes out positive on fight night but he doesn’t come out positive before the particular test. That makes you wonder. Obviously, they’re gonna say, “well, maybe he drank a lot of water,” they’re gonna’ come up with all this kind of stuff to basically not take responsibility of this factor. But the fact is, if you aren’t sitting down and applying the protocols that are not scientifically proven, you are losing credibility. Simple as that.”

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 9/8/2017.