Denver Broncos linebacker Jonathon Cooper pleaded not guilty Monday to a misdemeanor criminal mischief charge stemming from a domestic incident with his girlfriend last week, according to court records.
The judge in the case set a motions hearing for July 6 and a potential trial to begin July 22, according to records.
Cooper and his girlfriend of four years were both arrested following the incident Thursday night. Cooper was booked into a Douglas County, Colo., jail early Friday morning on suspicion of criminal mischief with a domestic violence modifier and was released later that day on a personal recognizance bond.
The incident began when Cooper’s girlfriend accused him of cheating and threw his phone against a wall, breaking its case, according to a police affidavit. When Cooper’s girlfriend retrieved the phone and attempted to look through its contents, Cooper grabbed her by the upper arm and took the phone back, the affidavit said. Cooper said he then used his neck to brace himself against his girlfriend’s neck to prevent the woman from taking back the phone. Cooper admitted he then bit his girlfriend’s phone, causing “disabling damage,” the affidavit said.
Cooper’s girlfriend told a separate officer that Cooper grabbed her by the neck and held her against a wall for approximately a minute and also threw her to the ground three times. She said Cooper then punched the wall next to her face.
However, that officer wrote in a separate affidavit that marks observed on the girlfriend’s neck were not consistent with such an assault.
“The small mark on (the woman’s) neck did not appear to be consistent with the claim that (she) had been held up in the air by her throat by another individual,” the officer wrote in the affidavit.
The officer wrote in Cooper’s arrest affidavit that “as of this report there is no probable cause for harassment or assault charges given conflicting statements and lack of specific evidence.”
Cooper commented on the incident in a series of Instagram story posts Saturday.
“I apologize to my family to my friends and my community … And so many others,” he wrote.
Cooper, a seventh-round pick of the Broncos in 2021, has 18 ½ sacks the past two seasons for the Broncos. The 6-foot-4, 257-pound edge rusher signed a four-year contract in 2024 that came with $33 million in guarantees and can reach as much as $60 million.
The NFL said in a statement Friday that it has been in contact with the Broncos about the incident. The Broncos have two more weeks of offseason work before returning for training camp in late July.