Johnson County prosecutor sentenced, resigns following domestic abuse plea
FRANKLIN, Ind. (WISH) — Johnson County Prosecutor Bradley Cooper has resigned after being sentenced in a domestic abuse case.
As part of a plea deal, Cooper will serve 540 days probation and pay a $50 domestic violence fee. He will not serve any jail time.
“I’d like to apologize to all the people I’ve let down,” Cooper said in Hancock Superior Court in Greenfield with special prosecutor Douglas Brown of Decatur County.
Cooper pleaded guilty in April to charges in connection to accusations that he beat his former fiancée and held her against her will inside his Trafalgar home March 4 and 5.
Court documents show Cooper also pretended to be the victim in electronic messages he sent to someone else.
Cooper on April 15 pleaded guilty to these charges:
- Criminal confinement – Level 6 felony, entered for conviction as a class A misdemeanor
- Domestic battery – Class A misdemeanor
- Identity deception – Level 6 felony
- Official misconduct – Level 6 felony
As part of his plea deal, Cooper also will participate in a counseling program.
Instead of his initial plea agreement, an amended conditional plea agreement filed Tuesday by the Johnson County clerk showed that the criminal confinement charge would be entered for conviction as a Level 6 felony, and the official misconduct charge will be entered as a Class A misdemeanor.
Cooper can petition the court to convert the confinement charge to a misdemeanor in April 2022. He can petition for the identity deception charge to be converted to a misdemeanor as soon as he completes the conditions of his probation.
Cooper, a Republican, has worked in the prosecutor’s office since 1994. He was appointed prosecutor in 2009 in a Republican caucus to fill the vacancy left when Lance Hamner left the position after being elected judge of Johnson County Superior Court 3, according to WISH-TV’s newsgathering partners at the Daily Journal.
Cooper ran for prosecutor unopposed in the 2010, 2014 and 2018 elections.
According to the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council, the Johnson County Republican Party will need to conduct a caucus to appoint someone to complete the rest of Cooper’s term, which was to end in 2022.
In the interim, Chief Deputy Joseph Villanueva will acting prosecutor. He has set a news conference for 9 a.m. Thursday at the prosecutor’s office, 1 Caisson Drive in Franklin. That event will be livestreamed on WISHTV.com, the WISH-TV news app and Facebook Live.
Cooper must report his felony conviction to the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission within 10 days. Then the commission’s executive director, G. Michael Witte, will report the conviction to the Indiana Supreme Court and request that Cooper be suspended, according to Kathryn Dolan, public information officer with the Indiana Supreme Court.
Dolan responded by email in regard to a question about Cooper’s salary:
“There is currently a question regarding Bradley Cooper’s salary. The matter is under review by the Indiana Office of Judicial Administration (OJA) and the Indiana Attorney General’s Office. It is a matter of public record that prosecutors are paid the 2019 annual salary of $151,137. The salary is paid from the Indiana Supreme Court’s Office of Judicial Administration budget, which administers payroll for prosecutors. Mr. Cooper has been receiving his annual salary this year until late last week when the OJA placed Mr. Cooper in no-pay status pending review of the matter.”
Kathryn Dolan, public information officer with the Indiana Supreme Court
