The Legend of Jon Woods

The “random article” button on Wikipedia can take you to some magical places. It can take a while to sift through the endless supply of insignificant, obscure, or otherwise uninteresting articles the website has to offer, but there’s always that one hidden gem that makes it all worth it.

This is how I discovered Jon Woods.

When I first came across the Wikipedia entry for Jonathan Earl “Jon” Woods, I was immediately enthralled by how utterly bizarre it was. Filled with oddly specific political statistics, broken links to websites that no longer exist, and completely irrelevant tidbits, it reads more like an art piece than the bio of a local politician, making a profound statement far too cryptic to ever fully comprehend. Whatever the true meaning behind it all may be, the article tells a fascinating story that goes far beyond any reasonable expectations. This isn’t just a story about state level politics. This is a story of squandered potential, a young rock band’s sudden rise and sudden fall, the destructive nature of greed, two tragic deaths and one saved life, and Bush’s Baked Beans, for some reason.

So, what better place to start than the “Background” section? Throughout his childhood, Woods was known for being a naturally gifted multi-sport athlete, quickly becoming a star in his schools’ basketball, soccer, track, and football programs. Despite his athletic talent, however, he discovered his true passion around the time he started high school: politics. His newfound interest in government came about the same way any politician gets his or her start; he met Ann Bush, Arkansas State Representative and part owner of Bush’s Baked Beans, who recruited him to get involved with the Boy Scouts of America. Understandably, once he had achieved the illustrious Eagle Scout rank, he knew that he had a future in the world of politics. I guess.

The article continues to throw completely inconsequential information at readers with details far too specific for a man so far removed from the public eye. Immediately after hearing about his involvement with the Boy Scouts, we learn that Jon Woods attended a basketball summer camp at John Brown University when he was a sophomore in high school. There, he met fellow camper John W. Brown (no relation to John E. Brown, founder of the university, if things were not already strange enough) who, as specified by the Jon Woods Wikipedia page, would eventually become a Pararescueman in the U.S. Air Force and was killed in 2011 during a shootdown in Afghanistan. Continuing with Woods’ high school years, the article quickly brushes over the death of his best friend who suffered a fatal car accident at the age of 16 to mention his part time job lifeguarding at his local swimming pool, occasionally giving private swim lessons to the neighborhood children. I was hoping to confirm the validity of this information, but unfortunately there were no citations for this section.

After graduating from college at the University of Arkansas, Woods decided that instead of immediately pursuing a career in politics or athletics, he would first try to find success in his other newfound passion: music. He had been learning to play the bass during his free time in college, and in 2004, he co-founded the pop punk band A Good Fight with his brother Dustin Woods (while touring, he prefers to go by his stage name Rizz—no last name, just Rizz). The brothers realized they needed more band members, however, so they began recruiting local Arkansas musicians by holding 30 of their own auditions over the course of two years. Meanwhile, Jon decided to get started on his political career; in 2006, he was elected into the Arkansas House of Representatives at just 29-years-old, becoming the youngest person to ever do so. Around the same time as the election, the two brothers finally finished recruiting bandmates, and through Woods’ connections with local politicians, the band was able to acquire a federal trademark for the name “A Good Fight” and began playing together “with the goal of seeking national recognition.”

And amazingly enough, they began to receive the recognition they were looking for. After releasing their first album in early 2008, the band won a national competition held by MTV to have their music played on the network. They were the only winners chosen from a pool of over 4,000 competing bands, and their songs (along with the accompanying music videos) were featured in several MTV shows. This exposure then earned the band enough popularity to perform at the legendary SXSW Music Festival in 2009, an event notorious for launching artists into commercial success.

So if the band was so successful, what happened? Why has nobody ever heard of these guys? The Wikipedia page doesn’t seem to have answers to these questions, only describing the band’s “continued commercial success.” They released a second album in 2010, which received even more praise, and the band toured constantly for several years following its release. They even had one of their songs featured in the soundtrack of the video game MLB The Show 13 and supposedly returned to the studio to work on a third album in 2013. But the album never released and the band simply faded into obscurity, their most popular song barely cracking 10,000 plays on Spotify. Jon Woods eventually parted ways with the band shortly after the conclusion of their tour in order to focus more on politics.

Somehow, between all of his time in the studio and on tour, Woods managed to serve the maximum three terms in the Arkansas House of Representatives, and with his entire professional life now being devoted to politics, he was elected to the State Senate in 2012. During his time in office, Woods did seemingly nothing of importance or excitement in terms of political achievements, although he was given an award of honor from the American Red Cross in 2015 after saving the life of a visitor to the Arkansas State Capitol by performing CPR.

It turns out that there was much more going on under the surface.

In 2017, allegations surfaced to the public that Jon Woods colluded in a kickback scheme in association with the president of a small local Christian college. Despite denying the allegations, Woods was to be tried in court and was at risk of serious federal conviction. However, the trial kept repeatedly getting delayed due to numerous other factors, and this is where things get complicated and very, very weird.

Due to the nature of the case, the FBI got involved in the conduction of the investigation, and the agent assigned to the case, Robert Cessario, was accused of destruction of evidence after improperly wiping the contents of his laptop three times during his assignment. Cessario admitted to wiping the laptop but claimed that he had done it to prevent his medical records from becoming public. This in turn spawned two more, completely separate court cases: an FBI investigation of Cessario himself, and a lawsuit filed by Cessario against his doctor regarding the medical records. The whole fiasco is extremely confusing and described in far greater detail on the Jon Woods Wikipedia page.

But it only gets more complex and incomprehensible from there. In January of 2018, almost a full year after the initial allegations, the District Court began yet another investigation with the help of a computer forensics team from the FBI. The court had questioned the validity of the digital files containing evidence for the case, which had been collected on a flash drive from a computer at Woods’ attorney’s law firm. After further inspection, the team determined that the files on the flash drive were not taken directly from the original computer the law firm used to store the evidence, and it was later revealed that the law firm had faked their computer’s hard drive crashing as a coverup for the use of a new computer. The finer details of this sequence of events are completely incohesive.

Several months later, Woods was finally found guilty of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, money laundering, and twelve (yes, twelve) counts of wire fraud. Along with being ordered to pay $1.6 million in restitution, he was also sentenced to 220 months in federal prison, which, surprisingly enough, is far below the federal standard of 324-405 months for a conviction of such severity. He currently resides in FMC Federal Prison in Fort Worth, Texas.

And that brings us to what appears to be the end of the story for Jon Woods thus far. But if this Wikipedia article is any indication, the Legend of Jon Woods is far from reaching its final chapter. He always has been and always will be a man of unlimited surprises: bizarre, confusing, and remarkably unremarkable surprises. Just from reading his Wikipedia entry alone, there is something oddly charming and loveable about him, even despite his criminal activity and his long history of shady, untruthful actions. If he can simultaneously run multiple successful political campaigns while also leading his own mid-2000’s pop punk band to TV deals and festival gigs, there is absolutely nothing in this world, not even 18 years in federal prison, that will stop Jon Woods from doing something freakin’ weird.

By Jaden Ellman