Horace Cooper -- GUILTY
As promised, the ACR Blog will provide primary sources for our discussion of U.S. v. Horace Cooper. In the Plea Agreement filed with the Court yesterday, Mr. Cooper stipulated that the Justice Department would be able to prove facts supporting an Obstruction of Justice enhancement to the applicable sentencing guidelines. Paragraph 13 (page 5) reads:
13. As detailed in the attached "Factual Basis for the Stipulated Obstruction of Justice Sentencing Enhancement," the parties stipulate that the two-level enhancement for Obstructing or Impeding the Administration of Justice under U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 applies to this case.
In his Factual Basis, Mr. Cooper admitted he "willfully made materially false and misleading statements and representations to the federal agents concerning his relationships with, and his solicitation and receipt of gifts from Abramoff and Volz." Furthermore, not unlike former President Clinton, Mr. Cooper repeated the materially false and misleading statements before a grand jury.
Since both sides seem to agree that there was an Obstruction of Justice element to Mr. Cooper's statements to the FBI and the grand jury, the ACR Blog wonders why the plea bargain did not include charges for Obstruction of Justice. Perhaps Mr. Cooper's defense team at Ropes & Gray simply would not recommend that their client plead guilty to anything more serious than a misdemeanor.
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As others have noticed, there is nothing in the plea agreement obliging Mr. Cooper to cooperate with investigators in other cases. The ACR Blog finds this disappointing. Dooing less work on the Cooper case could allow the DoJ to focus on higher value investigations. We're optimistic.
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***UPDATE***
April 9, 2010
3:35 p.m. CDT
We like Wendy's reaction to Mr. Cooper's claim that he has put this matter behind him:
Of course, this case will never really be “behind” him because when officials violate the public trust the people will never forget. This scandal will follow him always.
Seems about right.
2 comments:
Call me slow, but I finally read the entire Cooper indictment and what is stunning to me is the sheer volume of free tickets/dinners/drinks along with clear overt actions at VOA and Labor to benefit Abramoff and his minions. I am amazed that with all the evidence presented in the indictment that DOJ has opted for a plea. Compare this to the Verrusio indictment which is shockingly devoid of such details. All young Kendall Day and his glorious mentor Billy Welch do is make vague assertions about one incident (a baseball game and the highway bill). This must be why Verrusio’s lawyers asked for a Bill of Particulars. As far as I can tell, there are no overt “official” actions, unlike Cooper (see page 19, items 75 and 76) where he asked civil service employees how to remove investigative attorneys in a matter. Then Cooper went further and tried to get a lackey placed in the US Attorney’s office in SF to help an Abramoff/Volz client.
As a taxpayer, I am incensed at the massive waste of taxpayer dollars, and further that Cooper did these things and DOJ then let’s him skate. How is it possible that they stay on Verrusio when all the DOJ can say is that he instigated a letter writing campaign. That isn’t an “official act” and comparatively, it’s not even in the same universe as what Cooper did. Anyone who has ever worked on the Hill knows that telling someone to write a letters is a full scale blow off.
What is even more amazing is the stark differences between how Huvelle handles her cases while Roberts just plods along at his own pace. The lesson is never trust or help the FBI because they’ll screw you. And if you’re unlucky enough to get indicted, hope and pray that you get a good judge who understands the difference between evidence and vague baseless government accusations spoon fed to them by a bunch of felons. Kevin Ring must be happy about this development as its clear Huvelle is tiring of this whole affair.
ACR – I know you want to defend the DOJ lawyers but they were fooled into accepting pleas from the guys who did all of the leg work for Abramoff. They wanted Congressmen, they implemented a bad prosecution strategy and now they have nothing to show for all the time and money wasted on this investigation.
I hope Lanny Breuer is paying attention to this whole trava-sham-mockery.
Happy tax day to everyone!
to quote Wendy...
Of course, this case will never really be “behind” him because when officials violate the public trust the people will never forget. This scandal will follow him always.
the same is true for Welch/Day. They both put their own ambitions ahead of their oaths to enforce justice. Time, fate, and law school books will be the judge.
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