Lawyer: Matter involving Michigan State's Demetrius Cooper 'resolved'
EAST LANSING — Demetrius Cooper, a senior football player at Michigan State, had the terms of his bond revised Tuesday.
Judge Richard D. Ball ordered the 22-year-old defensive end to undergo daily alcohol tests and submit a weekly log of those results to his probation officer, according to 54B District Court records online. Cooper was scheduled to appear in court on Thursday, but the date was canceled.
Cooper was accused of violating the terms of his plea agreement, according to an April 27 court filing, which alleged that he possessed or consumed alcohol “on/about (April 21).” The filing came months after Cooper initially was charged with misdemeanor assault in November 2016.
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Cooper's attorney, James Heos, told WQTX-FM 92.1 in Lansing that “the matter has been resolved.” He said the terms of the previous March 16 bond agreement, which required Cooper to submit to random biweekly breath tests, remain in place, and that Ball added the more stringent alcohol testing portion.
Heos said there were two photos that implicated Cooper of drinking — one, the attorney said, showed Cooper “taking a swig of liquor” and was shot in February before he entered the plea agreement; the other, Heos said, was shot on a party bus on April 28.
He said his client’s breath tests and urine drops since the March agreement “were all negative” and said the “dates are important.”
Two videos allegedly from Cooper’s Snapchat profile were posted to Twitter on April 22 by the account @MikeSpartan99, which was created in April. The only tweets appearing on the @MikeSpartans99 timeline were the videos of Cooper, though the account also responded to a tweet from @EastLansingPD, which asked the user to follow it in order to communicate in a direct message.
The first 35-second video showed Cooper at an apartment, his Cotton Bowl No. 98 Michigan State jersey on the wall behind him, taking a drink from a glass bottle.
The second 34-second video showed him preparing to board a party bus, then transitioned to a still photo of a person holding two liquor bottles, hands covering the tops of the bottles. An emoji was placed over the face of the person to obscure the identity. That same video also showed Cooper drinking a red liquid from a red Solo cup on the bus.
It’s unclear what Cooper was drinking in either video.
“Demetrius walked onto that bus, he saw two bottles — closed bottles of liquor. He picked them up, one in each hand and his photo was taken. He put them down,” Heos said. “We were going to present witnesses Thursday — three witnesses who were on the bus — who were going to testify along with Mr. Cooper that he drank nothing but cranberry juice.”
The original case had nothing to do with alcohol. Cooper was charged in November 2016 over misdemeanor assault charge that he spit in the face of an East Lansing Parking and Code Enforcement officer on Oct. 30. He pleaded no contest on March 16, and that assault charge was supposed to be dismissed in November and lessened to a littering fine if the Cooper complied with his bond conditions, one of which was not drinking alcohol.
Heos said Cooper continues to deny he spit on the officer.
The 6-foot-5, 253-pound Cooper was a starter at defensive end last season and projected to maintain the role this fall. The fifth-year senior had 23 tackles with 2.5 sacks last season and has played 38 career games for MSU. He did not dress for the spring game April 1.
Heos said Cooper is enrolled at MSU for graduate courses this summer after graduating in four years. He said he did not know what Cooper’s football future might be.
“My understanding is he had a cyst removed from his knee by surgery,” Heos said. “I don't know if he’s recovering from it now, but that’s why he was held out of spring football.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari.