Ex-lawmaker pleads guilty to conspiring

Case connected to Woods trial

Former state Rep. Eddie Wayne Cooper pleaded guilty Monday in Missouri to conspiring with others to embezzle more than $4 million from a Missouri-based nonprofit organization.

Among the conspirators was an unnamed lobbyist from Rogers, according to Cooper’s plea documents.

Cooper, 51, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to embezzle from Preferred Family Healthcare of Springfield, Mo. Calls to his public defender in federal court in Springfield were not returned Monday. Under federal law, nonprofit organizations that receive federal funds such as Medicaid are barred from direct lobbying efforts. Cooper entered his plea before U.S. Magistrate Judge David P. Rush in Springfield.

From 2011 to 2017, Cooper received at least $387,501 in pay from an Arkansas lobbying firm that received $3 million from Preferred Family from 2010 to 2017. The nonprofit’s financial records show its payments were for “consulting services” when the real purpose of the payments was for lobbying and political campaign contributions, the plea documents

Cooper also received at least $63,000 in kickbacks in the conspiracy, according to his plea.

say.

Cooper also received at least $63,000 in kickbacks in the conspiracy, according to his plea.

Cooper must forfeit those gains to the government under the terms of his plea. He also faces up to five years in prison.

The lobbying efforts were to get grants and other funding, including money from Arkansas’ General Improvement Fund, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney for the western district of Missouri.

Cooper, D-Melbourne, was an executive in Preferred Family Healthcare’s operations in Arkansas from April 20, 2009, until April 26, 2017, in addition to being a lobbyist, according to court records.

Three unnamed executives of Preferred Family and its Arkansas lobbyist conspired with Cooper to pay the lobbyist’s firm the $3 million, the plea documents say.

Another $1 million of Preferred Family’s money went to lobbyist Donald Andrew Jones. Jones, 62, of Willingboro, N.J., pleaded guilty in federal court in Springfield on Dec. 18 to a similar charge of being paid for illegal lobbying services.

Jones also paid $45,000 of the $63,000 in kickbacks directly to Cooper, according to Cooper’s plea documents.

Preferred Family was formally known as Alternative Opportunities. It provides behavioral health and addiction treatment services in Arkansas and at least four other states that reimburse the nonprofit organization through Medicaid or other federal funds.

According to Arkansas secretary of state records, Cooper was a registered lobbyist for the Cranford Coalition Inc. from 2011 to 2015. That Little Rock lobbying firm was founded by Milton R. “Rusty” Cranford, a former resident of Rogers. Calls to the Cranford Coalition were not returned Monday.

Cranford was mentioned by name in a pretrial hearing in the corruption case of former state Sen. Jon Woods,

R-Springdale. Cranford was chief executive of AmeriWorks, a Bentonville-based nonprofit accused of paying kickbacks to Woods and then-state Rep. Micah Neal, also R-Springdale, in return for their support in securing a $400,000 state grant. The grant was returned after federal investigators began questioning it, according to court documents in Wood’s case. Neal pleaded guilty Jan. 4, 2017, to one count of conspiracy for his role.

Woods faces trial April 9 for the AmeriWorks kickback and for a similar scheme in which he is accused of receiving kickbacks in return for grants from Ecclesia College in Springdale. Two of his alleged co-conspirators also go to trial with the former senator: Oren Paris III, president of Ecclesia College, and consultant Randell G. Shelton Jr., formerly of Alma. The three are accused in a federal indictment of participating in a kickback scheme. Paris is accused of paying consulting fees to Shelton which were then passed along as kickback to Woods and Neal. Neal also admitted guilt in that plan in his guilty plea.

The Preferred Family executives in Cooper’s plea are identified only as the chief financial officer, the chief operating officer and the chief executive officer. The chief financial officer and chief operating officer, along with another member of the executive team, were

placed on indefinite leave in November by Preferred Family’s board of directors. The company spokesman would not comment on why.

The chief financial officer placed on leave was Tom Goss of Springfield. His wife, Bontiea, is chief operating officer. Also placed on leave was Marilyn Nolan of Springfield, described by the nonprofit as a member of the senior management team.

Cooper’s plea documents say that one of the Preferred Family executives involved in the scheme is the same one who signed the nonprofit’s IRS Form 990, the tax return for nonprofit corporations, for 2015. An online check of Preferred Family’s 2015 return showed that it was signed by Tom Goss.

Tom Goss’ attorney, Jane Duke of Little Rock, did not return an email request for comment. The Gosses and Nolan founded the Alternative Opportunities branch in Arkansas in 2006, state incorporation records show. Also shown on those incorporation papers as a director is Cooper.

The Springdale office of Decision Point, a behavioral health provider run by Preferred Family, processed the AmeriWorks grant and received the $400,000 on AmeriWorks’ behalf. Tom Goss’ signature stamp was on the check that refunded the $400,000 for AmeriWorks, grant records show.

Cranford was removed by Alternative Opportunities as director of its Arkansas operations on Jan. 13, 2017.

“In order to provide a veneer of legitimacy for the kickbacks paid to themselves and others, and to disguise the nature and source of the payments, conspirators caused the payments to be described in the records as business expenses, such as ‘consulting’ and ‘training’ services, and executed sham ‘consulting agreements,’” according to a statement from the office of Timothy A. Garrison, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

“Cooper and others solicited the assistance of elected and appointed officials regarding legislative issues that impacted the charity, in particular matters involving the charity, and in steering grants and other sources of funding to the charity from 2010 through 2017,” the statement reads. “These funding sources included proceeds from the Arkansas General Improvement Fund.”

In all, $640,500 was paid in kickbacks to one of the Preferred Family executives by check with more paid in cash, the statement said.

A sentencing hearing for Cooper will be scheduled after the completion of a presentencing report.