Just as the legal process concerning Jon Jones and a February car accident in New Mexico appeared to be progressing towards a resolution in one courtroom, an unexpected procedural twist has emerged: a second criminal case has been filed against the former MMA champion related to the very same incident.
Online court records confirm that a new complaint was filed on June 30. This filing is noteworthy because it contains a charge identical to the one Jones is already facing – leaving the scene of an accident. Compounding this, the new case also introduces an additional charge: Use of Telephone to Terrify, Intimidate, Threaten, Harass, Annoy or Offend. This development effectively doubles the immediate legal battlefront for Jones regarding the February events.
The genesis of these charges stems from an incident on February 21. According to the original police report, officers responded to a car crash where they found a female passenger exhibiting signs of intoxication and lacking lower body clothing. This individual alleged that Jones was driving her vehicle at the time of the collision and subsequently fled the area on foot.
The report details that the woman then contacted Jones via telephone and permitted a police service aide to speak with him. The aide reported that Jones sounded heavily intoxicated during this conversation and allegedly made statements implying a capacity to use lethal force via third parties. Officer Andrew Romero, who arrived as backup, reportedly had a separate conversation with Jones on the phone, encountering similar “allusions to violence.” The person on the phone reportedly evaded confirming their identity as Jon Jones during these calls.
Jones later provided his account to police, claiming the woman involved in the accident called him and passed the phone to someone she identified as a police officer. Jones stated that this caller immediately used “unprofessional language,” leading him to question the legitimacy of the law enforcement identity claim. The police investigation also included subpoenaed phone records, which showed Jones called the woman 13 times after the accident. Furthermore, a gap in his phone`s location data coincided with the time of the crash.
Based on this investigation, Jones was initially charged with a misdemeanor for leaving the scene of the accident in one case. He previously entered a not-guilty plea, with a bench trial in that matter scheduled for August 14.
The new criminal complaint, filed by Officer Romero, now brings a duplicate charge for leaving the scene alongside the telephone-related charge. An arraignment hearing for this second case is set for August 4.
However, Jones` attorney, Christopher Dodd, has quickly moved to counter this procedural double-tap. On July 9, Dodd filed a motion seeking to dismiss the newly filed second case. The core of his argument is that filing a separate case based on the exact same set of facts is legally improper and violates what is known as the “mandatory joinder rule,” which generally requires all charges arising from the same incident to be brought within a single case.
“Put simply, Mr. Jones is already facing prosecution in a separate case for the same factual allegations set forth in the criminal complaint in this matter, and it was wholly improper for this separate case to be filed,” Dodd stated in his motion to the court. He emphasized the burden this places on his client: “Mr. Jones now is forced to defend himself against two separate cases involves the exact same factual allegations.”
Dodd also raised pointed questions regarding the actions of the law enforcement officers involved. He noted that a detective and an officer (presumably Officer Romero) were both involved in the investigation and speculated on the reason for the dual filing: either a lack of communication and coordination between them or, more pointedly, that the officers “intentionally violated the same mandatory joinder rule for some improper strategic purpose.” Regardless of the reason, Dodd argues, the result is the same: Jones is impermissibly charged twice for the same underlying incident, and the second case should be dismissed.
The second case has been assigned to Judge Brittany Maldonado. As of now, she has not yet issued a ruling on the motion to dismiss, leaving the duplicate charges and the second case active as the legal proceedings unfold. This situation presents the rather unusual scenario of defending against essentially the same accusation in two separate venues simultaneously, a complication Jones and his legal team are actively working to untangle.
