Washington, D.C. -- United States Attorney Wilma A. Lewis, Assistant Director in Charge of Washington FBI's Washington Field Office Jimmy C. Carter, and Metropolitan Police Department Chief Charles Ramsey announced that Carl D. Cooper, 30, of 1249 Gallatin Street, NE, Washington, D.C., pled guilty today in U.S. District Court to forty-seven counts contained in a federal indictment that charged him with being the leader of a racketeering enterprise that was responsible for six armed robberies, a bank robbery and four murders, including the murder of three employees at the Georgetown Starbucks Coffee shop on July 6, 1997. The plea was taken before and accepted by U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green who immediately sentenced Cooper to a term of life imprisonment without parole.

The guilty pleas and life without parole sentence are the culmination of a joint investigation by the Metropolitan Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation into the July 6, 19997 triple murder at the Starbucks Coffee Shop at 1810 Wisconsin Avenue, NW. On the morning of July 7, 1997, the day-shift manager arrived at the coffee shop and found the bodies of three employees, Emory Allen Evans, Aaron David Goodrich and Mary Caitrin Mahoney, who were on duty the night before. They were lying in the rear area of the coffee shop, and all three had been shot to death. Detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department and special agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation teamed up to investigate the murders, and their attention ultimately focused on defendant Carl Cooper. In the course of the investigation, detectives and agents discovered that defendant Cooper was responsible for other crimes in addition to the Starbucks murders.

On Monday, March 1, 1999, defendant Cooper was arrested in front of his house on Gallatin Street, NW, on a warrant charging him with the August 12, 1996, shooting of an off-duty officer of Prince George's County Police. Between March 1, 1999 and March 5, 1999, defendant Cooper was interviewed by investigators from the FBI, Metropolitan Police Department, and the Prince George's County Police Department. In the course of the interviews in Prince George's County, the defendant gave written confessions, in which he admitted to the five of the eight criminal incidents that were ultimately charged in the indictment, including the Starbucks triple murder. The confessions were later determined admissible by the court which found the defendant's confessions "voluntary, readily and eagerly initiated, and provided free of coercion and duress."

On August 4, 1999, a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia returned a 48-count federal indictment charging Cooper with being the leader of a small racketeering enterprise that was devoted to enriching its members through armed robbery. (One count was later dismissed for technical reasons.) Between 1993 and his arrest on March 1, 1999, Cooper participated in eight separate racketeering acts --i.e. robberies, murders, attempted robberies and attempted murders-- in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Pennsylvania. Each of these crimes were charged in the indictment as a racketeering act under the federal racketeering statute as one or more substantive violations of federal and/or District of Columbia criminal law.

On Monday, April 24, 2000, the defendant and the government entered into a plea agreement in which the defendant agreed to plead guilty to all of the charges in the indictment and the government agreed to the imposition of a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. In negotiating this plea agreement, the government sought to ensure two things, that Carl Cooper would admit his guilt as to all of the criminal activity charged in the indictment and second, that he spend the rest of his life in prison. As a condition of his plea, Cooper requested the government's support for his imprisonment in a federal facility in the northeast --so that he could be close to his family-- and the government's assurance that there would be no charges brought against his wife and mother. The final plea agreement included those conditions.

This morning, the defendant entered a guilty plea before Judge Green pursuant to the terms of the plea agreement.

The 47 counts to which Carl Cooper pled guilty consisted of eight racketeering acts and the related substantive criminal charges. In pleading guilty, defendant Cooper admitted to being the leader of a small racketeering enterprise whose members committed various acts in furtherance of that enterprise. Those acts, to which Cooper admitted his involvement, included the following:

Racketeering Act One: Cooper committed the June 10, 1993 murder of Special Police Officer Sandy Griffin as he sat at his desk in the lobby of an apartment building at 1107 11th Street, NW. Cooper shot Mr. Griffin in the head so that he could steal the pistol that Mr. Griffin was wearing at the time.

Racketeering Act Two: Cooper committed the June 4, 1996 armed robbery of the Pizza Italia restaurant at 6511 New Hampshire Avenue in Takoma Park, Maryland. In that robbery, defendant Cooper and two others entered the Pizza Italia restaurant wearing masks and gloves and robbed the three employees at gunpoint as they were closing the business for the night.

Racketeering Act Three: Cooper committed the August 12, 1996, armed robbery of Christy Bennett and Bruce Howard, an off-duty Prince George's County Police Officer, and the shooting of Officer Howard in the course of that robbery. That offense accord in Avondale Park in Hyattsville, Maryland.

Racketeering Act Four: Cooper committed the September 8, 1996, armed robbery of the employees and patrons of the Velvet Touch Massage Parlor in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Racketeering Act Five: Cooper conspired with others to commit and aided and abetted the October 1, 1996, robbery of the Chevy Chase Bank , in Bethesda, Maryland. Cooper admitted that he assisted in drafting the demand note given to the bank teller and provided women's clothing to a male co-conspirator to be used in the robbery.

Racketeering Act Six: Cooper committed the June 26, 1997, armed robbery of the Rollingcrest-Chillum Community Center in Hyattsville, Maryland. In that incident, Cooper entered the community center in the middle of the afternoon, pointed two handguns at the employees in the office and got away with approximately $5,000 in cash that was in the office.

Racketeering Act Seven: Cooper committed the July 6, 1997, attempted robbery and triple murder at the Starbucks Coffee shop in Georgetown. Cooper admitted that he entered the shop after closing time and killed three Starbucks employees in an unsuccessful attempt to steal the proceeds that had accumulated over the holiday weekend.

Racketeering Act Eight: Cooper conspired with two other persons to commit armed robberies at the Tire Town store in Beltsville, Maryland and the Salon En Vogue hair salon in Hyattsville, Maryland. Cooper and his confederates drove to those businesses with the intention of robbing them, but aborted their plans at the last minute.

In announcing the guilty plea and life without parole sentence, United States Attorney Lewis, Assistant Director Carter and Chief Ramsey praised the joint investigative efforts of the Metropolitan Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Prince George's County Police Department. They also expressed appreciation for the assistance provided by the Maryland State's Attorneys for Prince George's County and Montgomery County, and the District Attorney for Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. They specifically cited Detectives James Trainum and Tony Patterson of the Metropolitan Police Department and Special Agent Brad Garrett of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for their exceptional and sustained efforts in investigating and building the case that led to today's guilty plea.

Lastly, they commended Assistant United States Attorneys Robert S. Mueller III (currently the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California), Kenneth L. Wainstein, and Mary Incontro, paralegal Philip Aronson and the other members of the United States Attorney's Office Superior Court Division who oversaw the investigation and prosecution of this case.