In a stunning rebuke of investigative misconduct, the U.S. Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals has granted a rare review of a conviction involving Senior Airman Bryce T. Roan, who was found guilty in 2021 of using cocaine after a positive urinalysis during a squadron-wide drug test. The reason? Investigators knew Roan might have tested positive due to a contaminated pre-workout supplement—and buried the evidence.
In December 2021, SrA Roan was convicted by a panel of officers at Little Rock Air Force Base for unlawful use of cocaine. The conviction was based solely on a single urinalysis result. Roan insisted he never used the drug and was stunned by the test result.
Unknown to Roan and his defense team at the time, Security Forces investigators were already pursuing a lead that a pre-workout supplement—kept in the shared residence by Roan’s roommate—contained dimethylhexylamine (DMHA), a stimulant known to cause false positives for cocaine metabolites.
That information was never turned over to Roan’s defense team. And worse—according to later findings—the Air Force destroyed the investigative file that contained it.
The supplement in question was manufactured by Blackstone Labs, a company previously sanctioned for illegal ingredients in its products. In an interview, Roan’s roommate, SSgt Nikkolas Wolf, admitted to using Roan’s supplement, raising red flags. Further research revealed DMHA could plausibly trigger a false cocaine result. One medical review officer even told an investigator that, under the right conditions, DMHA might yield a cocaine positive on military drug tests.
But in an egregious act of negligence—or worse—the case file documenting all of this was deleted by a junior, uncertified investigator, and the physical copy was destroyed. According to a military judge’s ruling in a related case, this violated Air Force policy requiring investigative files to be preserved for 75 years.
Roan’s defense was never told of the DMHA findings. They were given a redacted and incomplete version of his co-accused’s case file—stripped of any mention of the supplement or its potential effects.
Roan’s roommate, SSgt Wolf, was later acquitted in a separate court-martial. Why? Because he did receive the exculpatory evidence about the supplement in time. His legal team used it to raise reasonable doubt.
The military judge in Wolf’s trial called the government’s actions “grossly negligent”—noting that the destruction of the file and the failure to disclose the supplement’s contents undermined the integrity of the entire investigative process.
Citing a Brady violation—where prosecutors are constitutionally required to disclose exculpatory evidence—Roan’s defense team filed an appeal under Article 69(d) of the UCMJ. They argued that Roan’s trial was fundamentally unfair due to the government’s suppression and destruction of evidence that could have cleared him.
On August 22, 2023, the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals agreed to hear the case, recognizing the “grossly negligent” mishandling of evidence and its material relevance to Roan’s conviction.
While the appellate court hasn’t yet issued a final ruling on whether Roan’s conviction will be overturned, the fact that the case is even being heard again is significant. Article 69(d) reviews are rare, especially when initiated after both a trial and a failed petition to the Judge Advocate General.
Roan served his sentence—a demotion, 3 months of hard labor, and a reprimand—but now seeks full vindication.
If the court ultimately overturns the conviction, the Air Force may be forced to reckon with deeper issues: not only about investigatory incompetence, but the systemic dangers of relying on drug tests without considering known false positives—especially from over-the-counter supplements frequently used by service members.
This case exposes the military’s blind spots when it comes to supplement contamination and the potential for flawed drug testing to derail careers.
For now, Roan’s legal battle continues. But one thing is clear: had the government followed its own rules, this Airman might never have been convicted at all.
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