Cooper told jurors today at his assault trial that he was defending himself when he punched a much smaller and older prison camp inmate, saying he feared the other inmate had a weapon and accomplices.
“I was scared,” Cooper said. “I thought he had a weapon. I thought somebody was going to help him. ... There are no fair fights in prison.”
Cooper was tried in in federal court in Oklahoma City.
Cooper, 40, punched the other inmate, Ramiro P. Valdez, 60, two to three times the evening of Jan. 11 at the federal prison camp in El Reno, according to the testimony.
Cooper, an ex-National Football League player, then weighed about 300 pounds, according to the testimony. Valdez was 175 pounds and almost a foot smaller.
Cooper said he was attacked.
Valdez, an admitted methamphetamine seller, told jurors on Thursday that Cooper elbowed him as he checked his prison money account, then struck him in the face. "That's all I remember. He just hit me. Knocked me out, cold-cocked,” Valdez said. "I had blood all over me.”
Today, Cooper testified Valdez punched him first and then other inmates in the area started running, some toward him. “It was chaos,” he said. “I started swinging.”
Cooper testified he didn't want to hurt anyone but intended to end the attack on him as quickly as possible. He said he knew Valdez had access to tools from the farm on the prison camp and thought Valdez might have taken something to use as a weapon.
“I thought I was going to be stabbed,” Cooper said.
He said Valdez sucker-punched him as he walked down a hallway at the prison camp to a TV room to watch a movie with other inmates.
Cooper's attorneys have told jurors Valdez started the fight, knowing Cooper would respond, because Valdez wanted to be hurt. The defense attorneys contend Valdez thought he could get released from prison early if he was injured.
Valdez admitted on Thursday to asking an FBI agent if he qualified for early release, but said that idea came from another inmate after he had been injured.
Cooper went to prison in 2006 for cheating clients out of almost $1 million while a stockbroker. He was sentenced to serve six years and three months after pleading guilty to securities fraud and money laundering. He was a tight end at OU. then spent six seasons in the NFL.
"I was guilty. I took a lot of money that didn't belong to me,” he told jurors today.
He said he stole from others, including former NFL teammates, because he lost millions of dollars in technology investments and needed the money “to survive.”
Valdez suffered a concussion, facial cuts, a split lip, a broken leg, a broken nose, a knee injury and double vision that required surgery to fix.
He said his troubles with Cooper started after he refused to drive Cooper outside the prison camp. He said another time Cooper cursed him and called him a little cockroach when he asked if Cooper knew where some food was.
Prosecutors wanted to put on testimony about other aggressive behavior by Cooper before and after prison, but the judge blocked almost all of that.
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