Denver police arrested entrepreneur Jay Bianchi this week on suspicion of sexual assault three years after two women in Colorado’s music scene came forward with allegations against the former jam-band bar owner and music booker.
Bianchi, 55, was booked into the Downtown Detention Center on Tuesday on suspicion of six counts of sexual assault and one count of unlawful sexual contact related to three separate cases, according to the Denver Police Department.
Two of the alleged incidents occurred around Halloween 2020 and the third happened just last week, according to police.
Bianchi is accused of three counts of sexual assault, all felonies, on Oct. 31, 2020, in the 700 block of East Colfax Avenue; one count of unlawful sexual contact, a misdemeanor, on Nov. 1, 2020, in the 900 block of West First Avenue; and three counts of felony sexual assault on April 7 in the same block on West First Avenue, according to Denver police.
The 2020 sexual assault charges are classified separately as “victim helpless,” “overcome will” and “victim incapable,” while the 2024 counts are labeled “victim helpless,” “no consent” and “victim incapable.”
The Denver Police Department declined to release Bianchi’s arrest affidavit Wednesday, citing state laws that protect sex assault victims, and did not provide further detail about the allegations. The affidavit was not immediately available from the Denver District Attorney’s Office.
Bianchi has been a fixture of Colorado’s jam-band scene for more than two decades, previously owning and booking bands at “Don Quixote”-inspired venues including Quixote’s True Blue, Dulcinea’s 100th Monkey and Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom.
In 2021, he was accused of sexual assault by a 24-year-old sound engineer and 25-year-old singer, who shared victims’ statements with the Colorado Musician’s Union and later spoke on the record to The Denver Post about their experiences.
The women, Bonnie Utter and Kylie Heringer, accused Bianchi of drugging and sexually assaulting them during and after a 2020 Halloween party at Sancho’s Broken Arrow and the next day at So Many Roads Brewery.
They reported the assaults to Denver police in November 2020.
The addresses connected to Bianchi’s arrest match the locations of the now-shuttered Grateful Dead-themed bars, Sancho’s Broken Arrow, at 741 E. Colfax Ave., and So Many Roads Brewery, at 918 W. First Ave.
Bianchi, who remained in custody Wednesday, denied the allegations when contacted by The Post in 2021.
Utter told The Post she remembered sitting at Sancho’s on Halloween night and nothing else until she woke up, naked from the waist down, in the bar’s basement on Nov. 1 after she said she’d been drugged and sexually assaulted by Bianchi.
Heringer said her memory was also spotty during and after the Halloween party, though she remembered Bianchi trying to pull her down and make her cuddle with him in the basement. While she worked at So Many Roads the next day, Henringer told The Post, Bianchi began touching her genitals and trying to kiss her.
Utter and Heringer’s accounts sparked backlash and protests against Bianchi and the bars, and Bianchi later stepped down from booking duties at So Many Roads.
Bianchi sold Sancho’s to Tyler Bishop in August 2020. The bar closed permanently after an undercover sting in late 2022.
With Bishop, Bianchi co-founded So Many Roads. The bar was set to close in January after it was the focus of police stings related to underage alcohol sales and cocaine dealing, but reversed course and began hosting concerts earlier this year.
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