Progenex Employee Remanded to Prison
by Anthony Roberts
Several months ago, I made the claim that there were multiple convicted felons working for Progenex. Well, one of them – Andrew Medal – was just remanded back to prison for his involvement with Progenex (and ostensibly for associating with another felon, but I’m also of the understanding that he had another violation of the terms of his release, related to restitution for the victim of his crime). It’s important to note that he wasn’t remanded for something he “did” while working for Progenex, but rather was recalled on his probation for a prior crime. Let’s discuss:
Typically, convicted felons are not allowed to associate with other convicts, as a condition of parole and/or probation, for the duration of the sentence. Parole is when you are allowed to finish your sentence outside of prison (i.e. you get out before the end of your sentence), and you’re given certain rules to abide by.
Probation is when you commit a crime and don’t go to jail, but instead need to show the judge that you can abide by certain rules (the rules of society, generally), for a given period of time. Normally associating with other convicted criminals isn’t much of a problem, and it’s a pretty standard clause in the conditions of release. There’s a bunch of other pain-in-the-butt stuff that they typically want from people on probation/parole, like submitting to drug tests, giving up your fourth amendment right, and stuff like that (*and yes, I have been through this myself). Basically, if you’re not doing the stuff that got you arrested previously, and you’re able to prove it, you finish out your time and get on with your life.
But they don’t want you to associate with other criminals, for obvious reasons, the most important of which is that the recidivism rate increases exponentially when you associate with those types of people. And unfortunately for Andrew Medal, a violent criminal who was given a second chance, he couldn’t abide by the conditions of his release…so now his butt is sitting in prison. I believe this is because he worked at Progenex, with another felon – who also recently had a hearing to see if his probation would be revoked as well.
Now, technically, I’m sure that the boys over at Progenex will make the case that Andrew did not, technically work for Progenex, but rather that he worked for the financial company behind Progenex. Whatever. Duly noted. When I was performing work for Steroid.com, I said I worked for Steroid.com, even though the company whose name was on the check was Dynamic Sports Nutrition. In this case, Medal is working the Progenex booth at the Crossfit Games, promoting the product to athletes, and even presenting the goofy Progenex check at the games. Plus, I think the photographic evidence seems to suggest that he wasn’t just a guy working for an investment company that happens to be involved with Progenex.
“My experience with Progenex was mixed at that point, even after relatively positive experiences with the supplements. Thanks to Andrew Medal, Progenex Recovery was my between event recovery at the South Central Regional Qualifier, where Team CrossFit Central took first place. Though my best showing of fitness was the last event of that competition, I was still hesitant to give Progenex any credit for my improved recovery.”
And now he’s in jail, because he got involved with Progenex, and therefore he was involved in a business venture with another convicted felon. In my estimation, if you’re going to be violating the conditions of your probation, you should be quiet about it. You certainly shouldn’t be working for a company that has the kind of ubiquitous legal drama currently surrounding Progenex. And if I were one of these so-called “midwestern farmers” that invested my life savings into this company, it certainly wouldn’t fill me with confidence to see one of these guys getting hauled off to jail. But hey, I don’t know this guy at all, and honestly, the real tragedy here is that he was actually a part of the Crossfit community and was one of the few guys who I haven’t heard badmouthed by everyone who knew him…so maybe this is just a dude in a bad situation.
Here’s a parting photo of him with Progenex’s co-founder, Aaron Thomas, drinking his last Progenex shake for the next 3-5 years:
