ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Denver Broncos pass rusher Jonathon Cooper pleaded not guilty Monday in a domestic violence case stemming from an altercation with his girlfriend.
Cooper will have a motions hearing in a Douglas County courtroom on July 6 with the potential for a jury trial on July 22, just before the Broncos report for training camp.
Cooper's attorney, Harvey Steinberg, said the defense doesn't plan to file a motion to dismiss the charges and requested a trial date as soon as possible so that Cooper wouldn't have to miss any training camp workouts.
Cooper, 28, and his girlfriend were arrested Thursday night by Parker police and both were booked into jail early Friday morning, according to Douglas County jail records. Cooper was held on suspicion of criminal mischief with a domestic violence enhancer. His girlfriend was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor domestic violence and petty criminal mischief.
The arrests followed an argument and physical confrontation between Cooper and his girlfriend over cell phones that were damaged in the scuffle after she accused him of infidelity, according to a police affidavit.
Cooper had his first appearance Friday in the 23rd Judicial District Court and was released later that day on a personal recognizance bond.
Over the weekend, Cooper posted a Bible verse about anger on his Instagram account and wrote, “I apologize to my family and my friends and my community. ... And so many others.” He added, “I realize positing a bible (verse) after something very serious happens does not just mean everything is okay.”
In another post, Cooper wrote, "I apologize. This situation is not who I am.”
Besides the legal case, Cooper could also potentially be subject to discipline under the NFL’s personal conduct policy.
A seventh-round draft pick out of Ohio State in 2021, Cooper is entering his sixth season with the Broncos. He has started every game since 2023 and has 31 1/2 career sacks. He’s had at least eight sacks in each of the last three seasons, including a career-best 10 1/2 sacks in 2024 when he signed a four-year, $54 million contract extension.
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FILE - Denver Broncos' Jonathon Cooper speaks to the media at NFL football practice at Tottenham Hotspur training ground in London, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
Three more cases of the New World screwworm have been confirmed, including one outside the main cluster in Texas, demonstrating the difficulty of stopping a resurgent pest that could devastate the nation's cattle industry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday.
The screwworm is actually a fly larva that eats living flesh instead of dead material. The flies lay their eggs in open wounds of animals like cattle, but wildlife, pets and occasionally even humans can be infested. The government has a program to breed sterile male flies and drop swarms of them from planes to mate with wild females, which kept screwworm contained at the southern end of Panama for decades.
So far, there are five confirmed cases: three calves and a goat in Texas and a dog from neighboring Lea County, New Mexico. The small dog, which the USDA initially reported as a Texas case, lives in New Mexico and was reclassified as the first in that state.
The dog had not traveled to Mexico or Texas, so authorities were investigating around the property where the pet lived. If they find infected flies, animal inspections in the area will increase, New Mexico State Veterinarian Samantha Holeck said during a virtual news conference Monday.
The first two screwworm cases were discovered last week in calves a few miles apart in south Texas. A case was announced Monday in a calf in La Salle County, southwest of San Antonio, and in a goat in Gillespie County, west of Austin.
In each case, officials have set up a 12-mile (20-kilometer) quarantine zone to try to slow the parasite's advance.
Along with cattle and other warm-blooded livestock, scientists worry screwworms could devastate the millions of wild white-tailed deer in Texas.
Scientists expect new cases could pop up in the coming days and weeks, but it doesn't mean screwworm is spreading rapidly, said Edward Burgess, a University of Florida entomologist who studies the fly.
“When that first case is seen, everyone is being vigilant and their eyes are on it more intensely,” Burgess said. “And when you are looking for something, you are more likely to see it.”
Screwworm gets its name from the maggots’ habit of burrowing — or screwing — into a wound, according to the USDA. The pest eats the flesh of the animal, further opening wounds and increasing the risk of deadly bacterial infections. Animals can die within a few weeks if not treated. There are a dozen government-approved medications to treat livestock.
The agency and the U.S. cattle industry have been racing to prevent an outbreak since screwworm was detected in Mexico late in 2024. The USDA has been dropping sterile flies in south Texas since February and is working to both increase sterile fly production in plants outside the U.S. and build a $750 million fly factory in Texas.
So far, screwworm's reappearance hasn’t greatly affected beef prices, which are already near record levels because there are fewer cows in the United States. Although the parasite attacks live cattle, it does not infest meat or fruit.
Canada temporarily stopped importing cattle, horses or other livestock from Texas on Friday. The parasites prefer humid areas where temperatures are at least 77 F (25 C), making them more of a summer problem up north.
Burgess said the long-term solution — breeding sterile male flies — is months away. Since wild female flies mate just once, if that encounter is with a sterile male, outbreaks can eventually be halted as the flies die out.
The goal is to have enough sterile flies to stop the pests from returning in 2027 after the winter kills off most of them, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said at a news conference at the U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas.
Scientists are also working on ways to sterilize only male flies to make the program even more effective.
Texas officials encouraged ranchers to keep a close eye on their herds and local wildlife. There's now a 24-hour screwworm hotline and a website and map for reported cases.
“This is a highly treatable condition if you act on it immediately,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said.
However, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller — who lost the recent Republican primary to a candidate backed by Abbott — said the federal response will take too long and risks crippling the cattle industry.
Instead, he says a poison bait could eliminate the screwworm problem in a few months, even if the USDA and other experts say the bait hasn’t been proven effective and could poison other flies, animals and even humans.
“What the hell is a good fly?” Miller said in an interview.
This story has been updated to reflect that the USDA revised the dog screwworm case to New Mexico, not Texas as the agency initially reported, and to correct the spelling of Kerrville.
Associated Press writers Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Scott McFetridge in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.
Signage is seen as U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins holds a news conference at the Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, center, holds a news conference with ranchers, researchers and officials at the Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
A ranchers arrivse for a news conference with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins at the Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
FILE - A test container of dyed fly pupae are displayed at a Domestic New World Screwworm Sterile Fly Production Facility to combat the northward spread of NWS and protect American livestock, in Edinburg, Texas, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
FILE - An adult New World screwworm fly sits in this undated photo. (Denise Bonilla/U.S. Department of Agriculture via AP)
