Raleigh, Dec. 2—Tom Cooper who lost his appeal in the state court this week, is to get free from Atlanta prison on a minimum time, and he will start at once into the service of eight years for banking violations under the state law.
The federal and state offenses are very much the same. The state bank went into a national depository so that the breaches of the banking law are almost the same. The punishment inflicted upon Cooper is 11 years. His transactions were not called embezzlement. It is not alleged that he took the money and failed to pay it back. He violated the law as regards the prohibitions against exceeding the reserve and the capital stock. These were essentially state offenses. It is not charged that he actually stole money with intent to steal.
The violations were flagrant, all the lawyers and judges who have inquired into the case say, but the inequalities of the law show up in rather lurid style.
The purpose is to get him here so soon as he can leave the federal prison, then make application for a parole He will e allowed to serve a year or more before any move will e made in his behalf. Mr. Cooper has been prominent in state politics. Governor McLean knows him well. His brother, now under federal sentence for violations of the same laws as Tom Cooper, is out on appeal. W.B. Cooper, former lieutenant governor, stands a small chance of escape through appeal. He had been acquitted in the state courts for violations of the state law.
The fact that Toim Cooper will have done three years before he gets into the state prison works powerful in his behalf. He is now in the early 40s and giving 25 per cent of his life to prison service is a good clemency talker. His Wilmington friends are going to get up a whale of a petition, one of them said here a few weeks ago.
In New Hanover politics Cooper was a member of the school board and always he was credited with carrying New Hanover against Max Gardner in 1920. Which is used as no reason whatsoever for getting the parole affair fixed before Gardner gets into the governorship in 1929.
From the front page of The Concord Daily Tribune, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1925-12-02/ed-1/seq-1/
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