Cooper sentenced to 15 years in jail

Ladies' man and fake Navy SEAL Eric Cooper was sentenced to 15 years in prison today for tampering with one of his ex-wives' car titles. The sentence came after Cooper decided to withdraw his not-guilty plea during testimony against him from a parade of former wives and lovers, which Cooper's lawyer maintained had nothing to do with the matter at hand:

"All these girls here met Eric Cooper and within a few weeks or days got married to him, then got divorced, got the marriages annulled or whatever they did," [attorney Andrew] Williams said. "What's that got to do with tampering with a government document?"

The women's testimony might not have had anything to do with the document charge, but it was apparently enough make Cooper nervous about getting the maximum sentence of 20 years. "We thought about it and we didn't want to roll the dice" on the sentence, Williams told KPRC.

Testimony about Cooper's romantic exploits began yesterday after a jury found him guilty of signing his name to the car title without permission and forging his former father-in-law's name on the same title. Today, Cooper's sixth wife, Jennifer Smith, testified she had broken into Cooper's briefcase one night and found several rings — "at least two [wedding] bands and maybe three engagement rings," she said. Tonya Causey, Cooper's second fiancé, testified that he told her he was a lieutenant in the Navy, a story several other women said he told them, too; another ex-fiancé, Amber Morgan, provided prosecutors with a naval uniform most of the women said Cooper wore. He did serve in the Navy for three months in the 1990s, but was not serving when he allegedly told the women he was an officer stationed in downtown Houston or at Ellington Field. He also reportedly told women he was an engineer with Mobil Oil and the Tennessee Gas Co. and that he had earned an MBA, had a multimillion-dollar trust fund and owned land in Colorado.

In court, Cooper appeared in a wheelchair and said he is suffering from diabetes and bone cancer, both diseases he's reportedly faked before. Prosecutors said jail records didn't show Cooper had either condition. The testimony about his past, they said, was relevant because it showed a persistent intent to defraud others.

Cooper must serve at least two years of his 15-year sentence.