Ryan Cobbins Ousted From Judicial Commission Over Restraining Order

A man once lauded as a star in the revitalization of Denver's Five Points neighborhood stepped down from a governor-appointed commission late last year amid accusations of threatening behavior.

Ryan Cobbins resigned from the Second Judicial District Nominating Commission in November after a Jefferson County judge granted a previously unreported temporary restraining order against him, including a firearm ban. Governor Jared Polis had appointed Cobbins to the commission responsible for selecting nominees for district and county judicial vacancies in 2022; his term was scheduled to last until the end of 2027.

The protection order was requested by a woman we'll call Sarah, who asked to remain anonymous. After briefly dating Cobbins earlier in the summer, she and he slept together in July. But Sarah later discovered that Cobbins had a girlfriend at the time, and on August 27 told the girlfriend about Cobbins's infidelity. The next evening, Cobbins drove to Sarah's home in Jefferson County and sent a series of texts that Sarah says she perceived as threatening.

"There are a few things I live for. That ended yesterday. And you keep coming," Cobbins texted Sarah. "I have a few things to straighten out."

At around 8 p.m. that night, Cobbins again texted Sarah, saying he could see that the lights were on at her home and her car was parked outside; he said he'd return in a few hours. Receiving no response, he texted again shortly before 11 p.m., saying he was coming over. Sarah says she called the non-emergency police line and spent the rest of the night hiding in her bedroom with her two children. Cobbins never showed up, but Sarah was still worried.

"Ryan repeatedly called and texted me, yelled at me, made false accusations, tried to speak to my current partner, and repeatedly came to my home," Sarah wrote in her petition for a restraining order on August 30. Jefferson County granted a temporary order pending a court hearing to determine whether it should become permanent.

After weeks of unsuccessful attempts to serve Cobbins with the order, he picked up the papers on October 3. In his response to the court, Cobbins called Sarah's accusations "misleading" and pointed out that he had not contacted her since sending an apology email on August 29. Cobbins tells Westword that his texts were not meant to be threatening and that he only wanted to talk to Sarah. All of his contact with her was "respectful," he says.

"My thought is, if you want to have a conversation, then have a conversation with me. You don't need to call my girlfriend," Cobbins adds. "The idea of driving to her house was to have a conversation with her. ... By no means was that to mean any violence."

But Sarah says that she did speak to Cobbins on August 27, the day before he drove to her home, and he was "berating and threatening," she recalls. "He said he'd take care of this situation at all costs. He never said, 'I'm going to come hurt you.' But he said, 'You don't know who you're dealing with here,' 'You'd better not say anything,' 'You don't know what's going to happen.'"

For twelve years, Cobbins ran Coffee at the Point, a gathering place for the entire Five Points community at 2962 Welton Street. But the business closed temporarily in August 2022, and then permanently in January 2023. At the time, Cobbins said he was calling it quits because he'd been sued by investor Matthew Burkett and was also having staffing issues.

Running the place had been tough on his family; he'd gotten a divorce and wanted to spend more time with his children. "I prioritized things in the neighborhood and the coffee shop over my relationship — that may not have been the right thing to do," Cobbins told Westword at the time.

But his new relationships led to more trouble. When members of the Judicial Nominating Commission learned of the protection order, "it was decided that I should resign," Cobbins says.

After multiple delays in scheduling a court hearing, the protection order expired on November 30, a date determined in an out-of-court agreement between Sarah and Cobbins.

Sarah says she wanted a longer order but agreed to settle rather than risk having it made even shorter at a hearing; she says she wanted a guaranteed amount of time to take safety precautions before the order was lifted.

Cobbins refused to agree to a longer order because it "seems like a setup," he says. "You're talking to a Black man about the justice system."

Sarah, too, has problems with the system, describing having to get an attorney, hiring multiple private investigators to try to serve Cobbins, and taking time off work to reschedule court dates just to end up with a short-term protection order.

"It was a nightmare that I wouldn't wish on anybody," Sarah says. "It sums up why the system has failed so many women. It's going to stay that way as long as someone like Ryan is putting judges and magistrates in place who are going to keep the system that way."

Cobbins notes that he was never involved in appointing judges or magistrates in Jefferson County, and he's now off the commission altogether.

"It's extremely unfortunate," Cobbins says of his resignation. "Out of all the committees and boards that I've been on for the last ten, fifteen years, that was probably the most fulfilling."

Cobbins remains on the board of commissioners for the Denver Urban Renewal Authority, the business cabinet of state Senator James Coleman and the board of directors of the Colorado Children's Campaign, according to Cobbins's LinkedIn and the organizations' websites.