FEDERAL INMATE CURRENTLY IN COUNTY JAIL IN MISSISSIPPI
by Sharon Rondeau
(Jul. 18, 2019) — Last week a reader solved the mystery as to where federal convict Jesse Robert Coop is currently located given a lack of information in Shelby County, TN and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons (BOP) last month.
In response to our June 27, 2019 article titled, “Where is Federal Prisoner Jesse Robert Coop?” on Sunday a reader left the comment, “He’s in the DeSoto County Adult Dentation Facility. Hernando Ms.”
The commenter’s information proved accurate, as Coop is noted to have entered the Desoto County Adult Detention Facility on July 1 with a hearing date of July 25, 2019 on a probation violation charge.
When we spoke with Coop’s stepfather in mid-June, he said he was aware that Jesse had recently been transferred out of the Shelby County jail in Memphis but was unaware of the destination prison, which he expected to be a federal facility.
Last year Coop was convicted of eight federal counts stemming from a store robbery which both parents said was confessed to by Coop’s co-defendant, Keith Harrington. Neither could attend their son’s trial because of hospitalization, they told The Post & Email in separate telephone conversations.
It was unclear to them why their son remained in the Shelby County jail for more than a year when he was tried in federal court in Memphis. The State of Tennessee dropped all charges, Coop’s mother told us.
We became aware of Coop’s case after receiving a lengthy letter with an enclosure titled, “Affidavit of Truth,” in which Coop maintained his innocence of the charges and accused the prosecution and law enforcement of malfeasance. Coop has appealed the convictions to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati and is represented by public defender Robert L. Thomas, according to documents downloaded from PACER.gov.
On Monday The Post & Email received a return call from Chad Wicker, Director of Detention Services for the DeSoto County Detention Facility, in response to our message inquiring as to how Coop came to be there.
“I’m not familiar with his previous charges, but he did have a violation of probation, and we were notified by either Shelby County or the Bureau of Prisons, whichever one had custody of him, that he was ready for pickup, so we went and picked him up,” Wicker told us. “It does appear that he does have a hold to go back into U.S. federal custody, so I guess he’s still serving a sentence there.”
“He probably won’t be here very long; he’ll get sentenced and then he’ll go back to federal custody. It looks like he has a court date coming up on the 25th of July, and they’ll probably give him ‘time served’ and he’ll go back to federal custody,” Wicker added.
