BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Monitor Editor
STARKE — A Bradford County jury deliberated less than 30 minutes to acquit former Bradford County Commissioner, school board attorney and Starke lawyer Johnie Steven Cooper on grand theft charges.
Cooper is already serving a 21-month sentence for failing to refund $53,098 in trust account funds to the owner of a self-storage facility, after a sale of the property fell through.
During a one-day trial at the Bradford County Courthouse on Feb. 24, retired legal assistant Kathleen Clifton testified that Cooper took $75,000 of her money, promising to invest the funds in Canopy Communications Group. She added that after she began to feel uneasy about the investment, she asked for her money back and Cooper refused.
An investigation by the Bradford County Sheriff’s Office said Cooper deposited Clifton’s $75,000 cashier’s check into his trust account and then withdrew the funds the following day.
Canopy Communications Group holds patents on technology that it says can deploy broadband internet to rural areas. At one time, Cooper served as chairman of the board for the company. He still owns 50,000 shares of the company’s stock.
In 2018, representatives of Canopy offered to help the City of Starke build its own high speed internet network within the municipality. City officials later decided not to proceed with the project.
No shares ever purchased
During the trial Assistant State Attorney Lua Lepianka focused on the fact that even though a contract between Cooper and Clifton stated he would purchase shares for her, he never made the buy. Her witnesses told jurors that because of an existing shareholders’ agreement, Cooper could not sell shares to Clifton without first offering the stock to the company or to other shareholders. Lepianka entered into evidence a stock transfer ledger which showed no shares being transferred to Clifton.
“He took the money, and he didn’t give her anything back,” Lepianka said in closing arguments. “He willfully misstated reality when he told Kathleen Clifton that he would purchase those shares for her. He agreed to make a sale. He agreed to transfer or assign shares. He agreed to hold things in trust.”
Cooper’s lawyer Dan Sikes said that at the time Cooper drafted the contract with Clifton, one of the shareholders wanted to sell his shares to the other stockholders. However, before Cooper could act, two other shareholders: Robert Elliot and Stuart Kaufman scooped up the available stock, making the shares unavailable to Cooper. Therefore, Cooper simply designated 5,000 of his own 50,000 shares to Clifton.
“You’ll find out that in the contract here, he’s responsible for providing her (with 5,000 shares),” Sikes said during opening arguments. “Now what that means is whether he gets it from the other shareholders or not, he owes her 5,000 shares of stock and he has 50,000 (shares).”
Sikes added that even though the agreement states that Cooper would purchase shares for Clifton, the bottom line is that Cooper owes Clifton 5,000 shares of Canopy stock.
“Because these shares at about that time got snapped up by Robert Elliott and by Stuart Kaufman, he couldn’t get it,” Sikes told jurors, “so because he did this transaction, he still owes her the beneficial issue of these 5,000 shares of stock.”
Sikes insisted that the agreement between Cooper and Clifton is valid and still in force. He added that the only events preventing Clifton from cashing out is Canopy’s further development and an eventual initial public offering, which Sikes said was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sikes reinforced his claim that Canopy is still on track for an IPO by putting one of the company’s founders on the witness stand: David Orshan.
Orshan told jurors that Canopy already has contracts in place, and is awaiting a deal with JEA, in which the Jacksonville utility will use Canopy’s technology to remotely read meters.
“Kathleen Clifton will get her money,” Sikes told jurors. “There is no breach of this agreement. He’s not guilty of a crime.”
Defense strategy
Leading up to the trial, Sikes took the unusual steps of invoking Cooper’s right to a speedy trial and not demanding discovery evidence from prosecutors.
Virtually all defendants waive their rights to a speedy trial, which would require a trial within 175 days of a felony arrest.
Because he did not demand to participate in the prosecution’s discovery, Sikes entered the trial somewhat blind, not knowing all the evidence prosecutors planned to present.
However, the maneuver also kept prosecutors from knowing what evidence Sikes planned to introduce.
After the verdict Sikes said he hoped to catch prosecutors off guard by the move.
The defense lawyer’s strategy paid off when an unscheduled witness severely damaged the state’s case.
Former sheriff testifies
During his opening argument, Sikes revealed that former Bradford County Sheriff Bob Milner also invested in Canopy through Cooper, following Milner’s retirement as Starke city manager.
Prosecutors later put Milner on the witness stand, where he told jurors that after he retired, he asked Cooper if there was any way he could invest in Canopy.
“He advised me that I could not buy actual shares in Canopy,” Milner said of his discussions with Cooper, “that only owners and the original people (could do that).”
Milner added that after reviewing the company’s prospectus and reading about Canopy’s patents and research and development, he approached Cooper a second time about investing in the firm.
“He (Cooper) said you cannot buy shares,” Milner recalled. “(Cooper said) I can arrange a legal document wherein I can assign an equivalent amount of shares that I own, and you will be investing in me. In the event that an initial public offering is subsequently made by Canopy, in hopes that there would be more money than you put in, then we can do that.”
Milner said that he gave $50,000 to Cooper for 5,000 shares.
The former sheriff explained his deal with Cooper in exactly the way Sikes wanted the jury to see Cooper’s deal with Clifton: no actual purchase of stock, no legal assignment of shares, no entry in Canopy’s stock transfer ledger, a simple understanding that Cooper owed Milner—and Clifton— an equivalent value of 5,000 shares of Canopy stock when the company went public.
Lepianka tried to point out that Milner, and another investor Danny Wolfe, got better pricing than Clifton, but by then the damage had been done.
With Milner the jury saw a level-headed investor who was willing to take a risk and tolerate illiquidity while the company developed, in exchange for the chance of extraordinary returns. And they saw an investor who didn’t run to the sheriff’s office when his timeline for the payout didn’t go according to plan.
Because Sikes did not demand participation in discovery, prosecutors were unaware of Milner’s and Wolfe’s contracts until opening arguments. They couldn’t challenge or verify Milner’s testimony. They couldn’t depose the witness before the trial, and they couldn’t subpoena Milner’s or Wolfe’s agreements with Cooper.
Prosecutors also violated a cardinal rule practiced by virtually all trial lawyers: never put a witness on the stand unless you know in advance what that witness is going to say. This principle was particularly applicable to a witness like Milner, who was clearly in the courtroom to support his friend John Cooper. Before the trial, and even after the proceedings began, Milner sat in a chair directly behind the defense table in front of the bar— an area normally restricted to parties of the proceedings and their lawyers.
In her closing arguments, Lepianka tried to tag Milner and Wolfe as two additional victims in Cooper’s schemes. However, neither man portrayed himself as a victim on the witness stand, but rather willing participants in a high-risk investment, and as investors who still see a payout in the future.
More legal trouble
Prosecutors still have one case pending against the former lawyer. The personal representative of an estate told a Bradford sheriff’s deputy that Cooper was hired in Sept. of 2018 to collect mortgage payments for the estate.
According to a warrant affidavit, over the next two years Cooper collected over $25,000 for the estate, then billed the entity $24,383.75 for his services.
On March 30, 2021, a circuit judge ruled that reasonable compensation for Cooper’s legal services were $3,000 and ordered Cooper to refund $21,383.75 to the estate.
Corporal Logan Hough wrote in the warrant affidavit that based on the judge’s ruling and the fact that the fees were not refunded, there was probable cause that Cooper committed grand theft.
A pretrial conference for that case is scheduled for March 2.
