Jim Mustian
OA Online
Ector County prosecutors will not prosecute former narcotics agent turned marijuana activist Barry N. Cooper and two others on charges filed this summer by the Texas Rangers in connection with the December 2008 Kopbusters hoax.
County Attorney Cindy Weir-Nutter said Tuesday her office rejected the Class B misdemeanor charge of filing a false report to a peace officer because the charge does not reflect the facts of the case.
“The statute in Texas requires that the false report be made during an investigation, and there was no ongoing investigation,” Weir-Nutter said. “You have to be able to prove all elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The dismissal includes the same misdemeanor charge filed against Cooper’s wife, Candi Cooper, and 50-year-old Tammy Grimes of Gardendale, who was accused of being an accomplice in the Kopbusters hoax. The decision to dismiss the charges came despite a lengthy criminal investigation into a faux marijuana grow house that Cooper organized as a ruse to expose what he insisted was corruption and incompetence within the Odessa Police Department.
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