Broncos outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper was arrested on Thursday night, according to TMZ. He is being held in a Colorado jail on two counts of domestic violence and one count of criminal mischief.
Cooper’s girlfriend was also arrested on misdemeanor domestic violence and criminal mischief charges, Mike Klis of 9News reports. While arguing over cheating allegations, she admitted to taking Cooper’s phone and throwing it across the room. Cooper then grabbed her arm and took his phone back, according to the affidavit.
Cooper faces a misdemeanor charge “of criminal mischief from $300 to $999,” per the Denver Post’s Luca Evans and Parker Gabriel, who add his girlfriend is facing an additional charge of “petty criminal mischief less than $300.” After retrieving his phone, the 28-year-old defender told the woman he would break her phone if she did not leave his apartment. When she refused, the player allegedly bit her phone and caused “disabling damage.”
“We are aware of the matter and gathering more information,” the Broncos stated (via Chris Tomasson of the Denver Gazette).
Obtaining a personal recognizance bond, Cooper was released from custody, according to the Post. His girlfriend remained in custody at the Douglas County Jail as of Friday afternoon.
Cooper has developed into a key defender for the Broncos since they drafted him in the seventh round in 2021. The former Ohio State Buckeye worked as a reserve in his first two seasons, during which he combined for 86 tackles and 4.5 sacks over 30 games (14 starts). Since 2023, though, Cooper has put together three consecutive 17-start seasons and combined for 27 sacks. He recorded a career-high 10.5 in 2024, and the Broncos awarded him a four-year, $60MM extension during the season. There are still three years left on the deal.
Thanks in large part to an elite defense, the Broncos went 14-3 last year, earned the No. 1 seed in the AFC and made it to the conference title game. Their defense easily led the league in sacks (68) and ranked second in yards and third in scoring. Cooper played the unit’s ninth-most snaps (682, good for a 60.68% share) and posted 50 tackles, 16 QB hits and eight sacks. The 28-year-old also chipped in a sack in the AFC championship, but the Broncos were unable to overcome the absence of injured quarterback Bo Nix in a 10-7 loss to the Patriots.
As Denver tries to get over the hump this year, it will again count on Cooper to join two-time Pro Bowler Nik Bonitto as its top edge rushers. However, the Broncos may go some portion of the season without Cooper if his arrest leads to a suspension under the NFL’s personal conduct policy.
Wrong link…not a good mistake for this kind of news.
Thanks. Our auto-linker got the wrong guy. It’s fixed.
Yet you still don’t correct the spelling of the link itself. We’re lucky this sight is free lol
lol JonathAn catching strays meant for JonathOn
Yikes. Off-season brings out the worst of these guys. I guess I have to say “allegedly”
Just trade him to the Chiefs
Sean Payton Teams going to do Sean Payton things
Psh. It’s a league wide issue, not one coach.
Everyone does it
Boys will be boys
Bountygate
am I Right?
People keep saying that, but it was Gregg Williams who did that. I’d be willing to guarantee that most people who post things along those lines don’t even remember his name. Good defensive coordinator. Awful person.
That’s not to say that Payton deserves a free pass for not doing anything to stop it, but it was undoubtedly the product of Williams. It was Payton’s team, so again, he deserves some blame, but factually speaking Williams had a huge degree of control over the defense, and he’s the one who supported the bounties. Further evidence of this is that other bounty programs were found to have existed at Williams’ other spots (notably Washington, Buffalo, and Tennessee). Most of the allegations were that there was a slush fund that Williams created from fines paid for practice mistakes and used to pay out players. A significant number of players (like London Fletcher or Chidi Ahanotu) said that payouts were for good plays, not taking other players out. Others (Coy Wire, and at least four anonymous Washington players and a coach) said that there were bonuses for injuring players, especially if it took them out of a game. Ryan Clark insisted that was no program of any kind when he played for Williams, but to be honest, he’s vastly outnumbered by those who say that one did (even if they disagree on what payouts were for).
I think that it’s pretty easy to see how a slush fund for “good plays” could be used to reward hostile ones. The NFLPA of course says that there was no bounty system, and the evidence against the Saints wasn’t perfect (mostly hinging on whether payouts were specifically for hurting other players, when it seems like that was only one of several ways that they could have been paid). I personally think that the system was not purely for knocking players out, but that that was definitely encouraged and rewarded at a high rate, if not the highest rate. This is based on testimony from Williams’ other stops, and the witnesses from those.
That’s why I blame Williams much, much more than Payton. It’s clear that he brought this system with him when he was hired (as if an offensive coach who hired an independent defensive coordinator is going to take the time to develop and then police an entire slush fund for awarding payouts). Williams admitted to having had a payout system, but said everybody did it around the league. That probably is true, at least to some degree. What seems to stand out, though, is how sophisticated and large Williams’ system was. One player on a former team said that a player could get $8000 for a “kill shot” (this was in the mid 2000s) from the pool.
I blame Williams for the scandal (and really, everybody should. He should be the first name that comes to mind) since it’s glaringly apparent that he brought this system in and intentionally implemented it. It’s an absolute disgrace that he was ever allowed to coach again, and he only did so because people focused the blame on Sean Payton instead (ironically, the league allowed Joe Vitt, who as a defensive coach was much more aware of the scandal than Payton, to be interim coach for a while). That allowed Williams to recover from the suspension he underwent and coach again. To me, that’s unacceptable.
A lot of words to say that Sean Payton is absolutely guilty and had knowledge of Williams actions and did nothing to stop it. He is absolutely guilty.
I mean, it says more than that. I said that I hold Williams responsible much, much more than Payton, and I said why. I don’t think most people know about the details of what happened. Most importantly, they don’t know know how long Williams carried this around from team to team.
What’s relevant to this article is that Williams isn’t a part of this team, and I don’t think that the Broncos Joseph deserves to have this as part of the evaluation of his defense just because Payton’s there. The guy who was actually responsible for the bounty scandal (why must every single NFL scandal have “-gate” attached to it? It’s, well, stupid) is not there, and he was actually likely doing it at a ton of places around the league.
That’s all that happened, and they both got arrested? It must’ve been in public or something.
Yeah, criminal mischief is such a bizarre legal term. I mean where does the mischief end and the criminality begin? Perhaps AK185 can shed some light on this.
As a precursor to this, I do not work in Colorado, so I am not intimately familiar with Colorado law.
Criminal mischief seems strongly to be a vandalism based offense. Where I am, it’s legally referred as Malicious Injury to Personal Property (the actual statutory name is longer, and includes livestock in the title for those who find that intriguing). Colorado’s offense here has these elements that I can see:
1. A criminal offense of some kind has occurred (meaning, there is probable cause for some other charge)
2. As that offense occurred, the suspect damaged someone else’s property (even if that is joint property)
3. The value of the damaged property determines the level of the charge (levels progress from the caps of $300-$1000-$2000-$5000-$20,000-$100,000-$1,000,000-$1,000,000+; the first level is ‘petty’, next two are misdemeanors, rest are felonies, each level is less serious than the next)
Phones and cars being damaged during a dispute are two very easy and very common ways to get these circumstances during a domestic. Because of the “joint” property aspect, this law is much more applicable than a lot of vandalism type laws in places that don’t have this provision. A person who breaks a door in his/her own home during a domestic may not be charged with vandalism without this feature, as he/she owns the property. With this element, the person can pick up the criminal mischief charge, if he/she is being also charged with something else. Basically, the whole “he/she owns it too, it’s marital property” becomes moot as a reason not to charge. That’s how I’ve read it.
Now, specifically for this case, it doesn’t seem like Cooper and his partner are married. I don’t think that their property is joint property by default, but I may be wrong under Colorado law and do not know if there are any additional qualifiers that would change that that are not included in the reporting. So, with this in mind, it seems that the police found evidence that both Cooper and his partner committed domestic violence. There are two counts, so it’s two acts. That could be two separate acts against the same victim, or one act against two victims. This seems to suggest that they have been charged with two acts against each other.
One of these acts against Cooper seems to be from grabbing the other person’s arm to get his phone back. The criminal mischief for the partner is easier to discern based on the information, as it mentions her throwing his phone. Perhaps the throwing is an act for her. There must be some further act on his or her behalf that is not explicitly reported. This doesn’t have to be something “worse” or more severe, just something that fits the elements of Colorado’s D.V. laws.
I would say that the police found that both contributed strongly enough to the situation, and were hostile enough to each other, that they charged them with what they did. Without seeing the bodycam, knowing their history (history is relevant in D.V. cases-formally and legally-and can be introduced at trial much easier than it can for most offenses), and knowing Colorado’s legal environment, I cannot say exactly why every aspect of this happened the way that it did, and I won’t give an opinion on what I think should have happened. I can offer my experience in calls/cases that I’ve had, in another state. The legal date different, but the people/situations are usually similar. I do hope this explains some of it.
I’d prefer they keep it simple and just use the term vandalism and/or property damage. Criminal mischief always makes me think of Dennis the Menace messing with Mr. Wilson 🙂
Man this isn’t your soap box what’s with all these rants? Mute button please come back to me
AK185’s comments are probably the most valued in the forum. He’s earned the right to rant as much as he wants because he always provides intelligent insights and respects other people with different opinions than his own.
How cute sticking up for your bff that’s nice. That’s not a soap box rant? How many words is it 300? 500? This is a message board not your personal blog. Mute button really could solve this problem for everyone
We weren’t aware that your time is too precision to waste reading 500 words. You should request a refund…oh wait!
There was a question, I answered it. It wasn’t a rant, though. Sorry to bother you.
Sounds like he did nothing. Grabbed her arm to stop her breaking his phone? She’s the perp, not him.
He bit her phone so he’s just as guilty of property damage plus he grabbed her arm….can’t believe this involved criminal charges for either 😅 sounds more like 5 yr old arguing
Dindu Nuffin…
Always the same guys.
Does Cooper have a prior arrest history? If so, I’m not aware.
Ridiculous both of them! Are there any adults in the room?
Umm he bit the phone? Didn’t smash it or throw it out the window or into a body of water? No he bit the phone.. sounds logical
Maybe there’s room for Von Miller after all?