Jay Bianchi, Former Denver Bar Owner, Found Guilty of Five Sex Offenses

The jury filed back into the courtroom at 11:56 a.m., a full week after beginning deliberations in the sexual-assault trial of former Denver bar owner Jay Bianchi. A few minutes later, the room went still as Judge Andrew Luxen took the stack of verdict forms from the bailiff and began quietly reading through them — a long, silent minute with every eye in the room on him, including Bianchi’s. The man who’d once held court as the impresario behind the Grateful Dead-inspired bars Sancho’s Broken Arrow and So Many Roads sat stiffly, shoulders tight, blinking hard.

One by one, the judge read it allowed: The jury convicted Bianchi of five felony sex offenses involving three women, a sweeping rejection of his defense and an end to a case that had forced Denver’s jam-band nightlife to reckon with one of its most recognizable figures.

On the first two counts, both involving the same female victim, the jury found Bianchi guilty of unlawful sexual contact for assaulting her while she was incapable of appraising the situation, and guilty again for sexual contact obtained through submission against her will. The victim had testified that she lost chunks of memory after drinking with Bianchi and woke up bruised and disoriented.

The next two convictions involved another victim who told jurors she experienced sudden blackouts and a night she couldn’t reconstruct. The jury convicted Bianchi of sexually assaulting her while she was incapable of appraising the nature of the conduct, and again for sexual assault obtained through submission against her will.

The fifth conviction involved another woman, who testified to a similar pattern — a drink, a sudden blackout and then waking up in a state she couldn’t explain. Jurors convicted Bianchi of sexually assaulting her while she was incapable of appraising the situation.

But the verdicts weren’t unanimous across the entire slate of charges. The jury acquitted Bianchi on a second-degree assault charge involving the alleged drugging of an individual male. And they did not return verdicts — the forms came back undesignated — on three other counts: a second drugging-related assault involving another male, plus additional sexual-assault charges tied to two of the female victims. Prosecutors said those five unresolved counts can be refiled if they choose, but no new jury trial dates have been set.

The five guilty verdicts were enough to dramatically shift the room. As soon as the last form was read, Judge Luxen revoked Bianchi’s bond. The man who’d spent the past two decades drifting between Deadhead-themed bars — who once presided over late-night crowds at Sancho’s, Quixote’s, Owsley’s, Be On Key, and So Many Roads — was ordered held without bond until sentencing.

Throughout the three-week trial, prosecutors argued that Bianchi used alcohol, access, and isolation to prey on women inside his bar network, a pattern they said had been hiding in plain sight for years. The defense cast Bianchi as a man undone by rumor and retroactive interpretation — a bar owner whose name had become shorthand for every grievance in the jam-band music scene.

The jury took a week to deliberate and come to its decision.

Before the court adjourned, the judge ordered a pre-sentence evaluation, including an assessment of whether Bianchi meets Colorado’s criteria for designation as a sexually violent predator, a label that carries strict supervision, lifetime registration and severe movement and residency restrictions. The results of that evaluation will shape the sentencing range.

Sentencing is set for January 23. Bianchi now faces years in state prison on the five felony convictions. Prosecutors have not yet said whether they will retry the unresolved counts, but for now, the jury’s message was unmistakable.