A Denver man has been sentenced to 45 years in prison for his role in a botched marijuana robbery near Cheesman Park that left 28-year-old Michael Milligan dead in November 2023. Armoni Patterson pleaded guilty in July 2026 to conspiracy to commit second-degree murder and attempted first-degree assault, while his co-defendant, Travis Jackson, was convicted by a Denver jury of first-degree murder and now faces mandatory life without parole.
According to FOX31 Denver, the Denver District Attorney’s Office announced Patterson’s 45-year sentence through a social media statement. Patterson’s attempted-assault plea stemmed from a separate, non-deadly shooting that happened about a month before the fatal Cheesman Park robbery, the outlet reported.
How the Fatal Robbery Unfolded
The deadly shooting happened on November 30, 2023, when Jackson and Patterson arranged to meet Milligan on the 800 block of North Gaylord Street under the pretense of buying four pounds of marijuana, according to an arrest affidavit cited by 9News. Milligan had obtained the marijuana using a medical marijuana card before attempting to sell it. When Jackson tried to rob him during the transaction, Milligan attempted to drive away and was shot inside his vehicle, the affidavit states.
His car crashed about half a block away before he was taken to the hospital, per the same account. Denver police had responded to reports of gunfire near Cheesman Park around 6:22 p.m. that evening. Investigators arrested Jackson on December 7, 2023, one week after the shooting, after tracking him through cell phone records and an eyewitness identification, the outlet reported.
A Second Shooting Seven Weeks Earlier
Patterson’s case was also tied to an earlier, unrelated non-deadly shooting that occurred roughly a month before Milligan’s killing. A statement from the Denver District Attorney’s Office published on Facebook revealed that on October 7, 2023, 39-year-old George Gordon was struck and shot in a parking garage at 1509 North Pearl Street, and Patterson pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree assault for his role in that attack…