Meeting on Cooper’s land deal is closed to public
NASHVILLE — The public and reporters will be barred from a Senate ethics panel’s discussions on whether a state senator may be an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a federal fraud case, the group’s chairman said Tuesday.
The chairman of the Senate Ethics Subcommittee, Democrat Doug Henry of Nashville, said the group will meet behind closed doors, “like a grand jury.” Henry said the group also met behind closed doors earlier this summer to weigh cases.
“We’ll meet privately, form a conclusion, then we’ll meet publicly and announce the conclusion,” Henry said.
Henry wouldn’t say what he thought about the case surrounding state Sen. Jerry Cooper.
The panel is looking into questions about the Morrison Democrat, after a federal indictment seemed to point out Cooper as the unindicted co-conspirator in a case that has seen business partners hit with federal charges.
Henry said he has not asked Cooper to attend the deliberations or make his case at the closed-door meeting.
Cooper, who has avoided questions for months, told reporters Tuesday that he has never been contacted by federal authorities, asked to testify, or told he is a target of the investigation.
Cooper made the comments while rubbing elbows with business leaders at an economic development conference in Nashville.
“There is no indictment against me,” Cooper said. “I have never been contacted by anybody in the federal government.”
Senate Republican leader Ron Ramsey asked Henry’s group to look into the matter, saying “It is generally assumed that the unindicted co-conspirator is Senator Jerry Cooper.”
Cooper, who will not attend Wednesday’s hearing, said Ramsey must know more than he does.
But Cooper said he is worried about the indictment, and its veiled mention of him.
Cooper has not been charged but is identified by tax records as the man prosecutors are calling an unindicted co-conspirator.
“I just don’t know what to do,” he said. “If someone in the federal government was talking about you, you’d be concerned, wouldn’t you?”
The land deal resulted in federal indictments charging Anthony and Teresa Auyer of Alabama, who purchased Cooper’s lumber mill property in Warren County, and property appraiser James Passons.
The indictments also cite an unnamed, unindicted co-conspirator who owned the property and “used his political contacts, connections and influence” to help Auyer obtain a $1.77 million federally insured loan.
Cooper said he never used any of his influence as a state senator to help engineer the sale.
“That’s the thing I really don’t understand. I know the difference between right and wrong and … we went out of our way to make sure we did nothing wrong,” Cooper said.
Late last year, it was learned that Cooper was caught in financial trouble, and has defaulted on nearly a million dollars in bank loans. His state senatorial pay is being garnished for payment on the loans, and the interest on the loans is accumulating quicker than it can be paid.