After 13 months in career limbo, Josh Barnett is fed up with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

Barnett, 40, told MMAjunkie he won’t agree to any settlements offered by the UFC’s anti-doping partner as a resolution to his alleged drug violation in December 2016.

As a result, the Barnett (35-8 MMA, 7-3 UFC) expects USADA to hand down the most severe punishment: a four-year suspension for two-time offenders.

“I end up no matter what at the mercy of USADA,” the veteran UFC heavyweight said. “And to be honest, I don’t trust them in any way, shape or form. I have no interest to work with them or be a part of their program.

“I would be willing to do anything else but work with USADA at this point. When you can’t trust someone, what are you supposed to do? Continue to give them the opportunity to break your trust? They don’t seem responsible enough to have oversight over my career.”

USADA did not immediately answer a request for comment; MMAjunkie will update this story with any response from the UFC anti-doping partner.

USADA flagged Barnett and placed him under temporary suspension on Dec. 9, 2016 after he failed an out-of-competition drug test. Barnett said the test came back positive for ostarine, a selective androgen receptor modulator (SARM) that mimics anabolic agents and is banned year-round.

The substance has repeatedly shown up in the positive drug tests by UFC fighters. UFC welterweight Tim Means received a reduced suspension when he traced ostarine back to a tainted supplement. UFC women’s strawweight Amanda Ribas received a two-year term despite a similar defense.

Barnett, the No. 9 fighter in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA heavyweight rankings, denies he took ostarine or any banned substance in connection with the Dec. 9 failure. He said after working with USADA, the positive was linked to a supplement he took containing tribulus terrestris, a legal herb purported to boost natural testosterone.

In spite of that, USADA factored into his case a previous positive that upped his potential punishment to four years. Although the anti-doping agency offered him an 18-month suspension as a reduced punishment, he feels mislead and accused USADA of running a program that values punishment above the health and safety of athletes.

“I’m not against the idea and the spirit of USADA, or what an independent drug testing program is for – not at all,” Barnett said. “I don’t have an issue with any of these things, and even though I took a supplement that was tainted, I’m OK with having to go through the process to test the supplements. I’m totally fine with that.

“The only thing I protest to is being hammered after the fact, after finding that I am innocent of any wrongdoing, and instead of moving on and considering the time spent researching and finding the data and appealing my case as enough – the extra efforts to come after me, that’s where I draw the line.”

In 2009, Barnett was denied a bout with Fedor Emelianenko in the now-defunct Affliction when a pre-fight drug test revealed a steroid metabolite. USADA is allowed to factor in doping violations that occurred prior to the implementation of the UFC’s anti-doping program. Each violation must take place within the same 10-year period in order to be considered multiple violations.

Without aggravating circumstances, ostarine is considered non-specified substance that carries a two-year suspension for first-time offenders. In cases where a positive test stems from a contaminated supplement, the punishment can range from a reprimand to two years.

The 2009 test was not Barnett’s first brush with doping violations. In 2001, he received a warning after failing a post-fight test for steroids after UFC 34. One year later, he was stripped of the UFC heavyweight title after failing a steroid test in the wake of a win over Randy Couture.

Despite his past, Barnett said USADA initially proposed a two-year term. He declined that in favor of testing his supplements. After shipping his unused pills to the anti-doping agency, which also purchased the supplement independently and tested it at a World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited laboratory, he awaited the results.

After the results confirmed a tainted supplement, Barnett said USADA acknowledged he didn’t knowingly ingest ostarine and the positive likely resulted from the tribulus terrestris. That led him to believe he would receive a reduced suspension, or even a warning if he volunteered to educate other fighters about the problem of tainted supplements.

Instead, the same two-year suspension came back. After he and his manager protested, the term was amended to 18 months, retroactive to his temporary suspension date.

“They have a real insistence of trying to mete out punishment,” Barnett said of USADA. “Despite everything we’ve done and the initial process of dealing with them, they at some point turned a corner and became very stringent, hardcore, inflexible, and really, unwilling to continue on the same path they initiated. It seems they want to erect a stake and burn me at it.”

Barnett maintains his positive test from 2009 isn’t relevant to his current case and is a “more complex thing than just on paper.” He could take the matter to arbitration, as UFC athletes are afforded. But he is suspicious that his guilt will be rubber-stamped and said the costs of fighting USADA aren’t worth it.

“I think I’m the first fighter to go full on, indepedent, Olympic-level random testing when I fought Travis Browne (at UFC 168), which I didn’t have any problem doing,” he said. “But USADA hasn’t been nearly as easy to deal with.

“It’s very frustrating, because I understand the intent of the program. But this doesn’t feel like anything having to do with the intent of the program. This feels like something else, and that’s the trouble. I feel like this isn’t anything about fighter safety or sanctity of sport. This is more about using a witch hunt on a personal level. Maybe punishing people, to them, represents effectiveness (rather) than being about athlete safety and finding issue with tainted supplements.”

Barnett was last seen in the octagon in September 2016, when he submitted ex-UFC champ Andrei Arlovski at UFC Fight Night 93. A four-year suspension would certainly signal the end of his fighting career in the UFC.

That’s not an idea that sits well with the longtime veteran.

“I’m not done fighting,” Barnett said. “I’d still like to compete. But I want to train and compete and have a reasonable and understandable process to the whole thing.”

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