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Fair ~ River stage: 33.86 Rising Saturday, November 21, 2009 |
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Cooper's sentence postponedWednesday, October 3, 2007
But Hamilton didn't grant the full delay sought by Cooper and his attorney, Joel Schwartz of St. Louis. Instead of 30 days, Hamilton delayed the sentencing by a week, from Oct. 19 to Oct. 26. Cooper pleaded guilty Aug. 9 to creating shell companies to hide the real employers of foreign truck drivers and to purchasing temporary worker visas intended for hospitality workers for use by the drivers. Since entering the plea, Cooper, a Republican, has resigned from the Missouri House, been suspended from the practice of law and ordered to pay $50,000 to settle a federal forfeiture claim against the financial gains from his actions. The U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of Missouri did not object to the delay, prosecutor Jim Crowe said Tuesday. "We typically don't have any objection" when an attorney has a conflict, Crowe said. "That is more of a professional courtesy thing." In his court filing, Schwartz said he has a jury trial beginning Oct. 19 in Washington County and he's preparing for jury trials in three St. Louis criminal cases. "Counsel feels this continuance is necessary to properly prepare for defendant's sentencing," Schwartz wrote. In a brief interview Tuesday, Cooper said the request for postponement was based entirely on Schwartz's scheduling conflicts. "It was just typical within the court process," he said. Cooper faces a maximum of 15 years in federal prison. He has cooperated with investigators, and attorneys for both sides have said they expect Cooper will be sentenced to 30 to 37 months. A special election will be held Feb. 5 in the 158th District, which includes most of Cape Girardeau, to select Cooper's replacement. The candidates include former state representative Mary Kasten, a Republican, former Cape Girardeau postmaster Mike Keefe, a Democrat, and health-care information technology employee George Webster, a Libertarian. Candidates wishing to run as independents have until Nov. 15 to submit petitions with the signatures of 239 registered voters to the Missouri secretary of state. 335-6611, extension 126 Comments  Note: The nature of the Internet makes it impractical for our staff to review every comment. If you feel that a comment is offensive, please Login or Create an account first, and then you will be able to flag a comment as objectionable. Please also note that those who post comments on semissourian.com may do so using a screen name, which may or may not reflect a website user's actual name. Readers should be careful not to assign comments to real people who may have names similar to screen names. Refrain from obscenity in your comments, and to keep discussions civil, don't say anything in a way your grandmother would be ashamed to read.
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Vote George Webster to replace Cooper!
Mary Kasten is out of touch and did house Cooper years ago.Mike Keefe, well he was a pretty good postmaster but look what he is doing with the park board.The 2 party's are failing in every sense of the word.Its time for a Cool Change around here and Mr.Webster is a very good choice.
I'm with you GREYWOLF; why should we reward either elitist parties terrible behavior with more votes?
These special visa programs are "government subsidy" programs that make it easy for employer interests to permanently displace experienced American citizens.
The 10,000 members of AILA have worked very hard to expand such programs, since they bring lots of money to their members.
The problem is that millions of American breadwinners have lost their careers as a consequence of these programs that were created in 1990. There are many other harms caused as well.
To learn more, please visit the website
http://www.JobDestruction.com Use the free citizen activist tools at http://www.NumbersUSA.com to press for reform of these corrupt programs.
I have not heard anything about George Webster. Is he a Libertarian candidate or an Independent?
I challenge you (Dr_Gene_Nelson) to find one capable American truck driver who could not find a good job because there are too many Mexican truck drivers on visas. There is a shortage of truck drivers. Anyone with a clean record and a CDL can get a job.
I am still shocked that Clint Tracy was blown off by the party. He ought to run as an independent. Getting on the ballot is not hard and he would do a great job representing the city.