Citing error, DA withdraws request to jail John Bowlen
Son of Broncos’ owner hadn’t signed probation terms
Prosecutors on Friday withdrew their request to jail John Bowlen, who was accused of violating his probation during a drunken driving incident in California in July.
The district attorney’s office found that Bowlen, the son of Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen, hadn’t yet signed his probation terms and conditions at the time of the California arrest.
On Aug. 30, Bowlen signed his probation terms for a harassment claim stemming from a 2016 domestic violence case, according to the district attorney’s office. Bowlen’s two years of probation are now in place from that date.
In a motion filed with the court, Bowlen’s attorney Harvey Steinberg said the judge in the domestic violence case put a stay on Bowlen’s probation until his appeal. When Bowlen lost his appeal, the court did not give him notice of how to commence his probation sentence.
It is not common for a judge to offer a stay of probation to wait out an appeal, Colorado Judicial Branch spokesman Jon Sarche said. Steinberg had attempted to bring the appeal up to the Colorado Supreme Court, which turned it down. At that point, there was no trigger for probation to get the ball rolling, he said.
“There’s nothing typical here,” Sarche said. “There was confusion based on that stay.”
Bowlen did not say anything when he appeared at the Arapahoe County District Court on Friday. He was surrounded by Steinberg and two others when he left the courtroom. One of the other two men made an obscene gesture toward a Denver Post photographer and said “No” when Steinberg was asked whether he had a comment.
In August, Bowlen surrendered to Glendale police. The month before, he was arrested on two misdemeanor charges of drunken driving after he passed cars on the median of a California highway while driving more than 100 mph.
Several 911 calls were made for more than 20 miles as Bowlen drove a Jeep with a puppy inside, according to California authorities. When pulled over, he was uncooperative and refused to have his blood taken. He told officers on several occasions that he was the “son of the Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen.”
“It didn’t help,” a California Highway Patrol spokesman told The Denver Post at the time.
There were five potential ways that Bowlen would have violated his probation if he had signed the terms and conditions, according to the complaint: He did not report his arrest in California; he did not report to his probation officer in some time; he did not report to community service; he did not enroll in court-ordered domestic violence and drug and alcohol treatment programs; he did not report he had gone to California.
In April 2016, Bowlen was found guilty of harassment in a domestic violence case in which Bowlen pushed his girlfriend against a bathroom wall. His girlfriend told investigators that Bowlen was under the influence of “whippets” — nitrous oxide — and alcohol. The two had been dating for about 10 months, and she told police there were previous verbal abuse incidents.
In a 911 call, she screamed and hung up. The dispatcher called back and Bowlen answered, saying she was fine and referencing that he is “a man of the city, a friend of the mayor, and everybody knows exactly who I am.”
“As the blood of the city, I’m telling you right now, nothing is wrong,” Bowlen told the dispatcher. “She is leaving my house.”