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 BIOGRAPHY
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Erik A. Cooper was a foster parent for forty-two exceptional young men placed in his care by the Gwinnett County Department of Family and Children Services ("DFACS"), located in Lawrenceville, Georgia. His life dramatically changed when he attempted to reform Georgia's adoption law affecting foster children.
In 2003, Erik filed an unprecedented civil action to adopt a foster child at the request of the boy's mother. When Erik filed his adoption action in court, he had no idea what would follow. His whole life would be changed forever. Immediately after his attorney filed Erik's petition for adoption, he was accused of inappropriate conduct with children. No accusations were made against Erik while he was volunteering as a foster parent for forty-two boys. Accusations surfaced only after a competing foster parent also wanted to adopt the same child Erik was adopting. If successful, Erik’s legal case would have allowed foster parents to adopt the very children they cared for without succumbing to the politics, manipulation, and pressures of Georgia’s corrupt and mismanaged child welfare system. What Erik didn’t know was that his adoption lawsuit would risk millions of dollars of state and federal subsidies the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services receives every year. |
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In 2003, Erik was arrested and charged with nine counts of child molestation involving six of his forty-two former foster children. Four of the alleged victims were brothers - the children Erik hoped to adopt. The remaining two children had no relationship whatsoever, other than having been manipulated by improper interviews coached by authority figures bent on convincing the juveniles that they too had been victims of child molestation. Thirty-six other young boys, also foster children who had lived with Erik, refused police investigators' suggestive influences and denied anything inappropriate ever occurred.
Criminal charges were brought against Erik following an unscrupulous law enforcement investigation conducted by the Gwinnett County Police Department. Audio and video recorded interviews obtained by subpoena in preparation for Erik's criminal trial shocked the jury. Thousands of photographs Erik took of time he spent with his foster kids, including trips to Walt Disney World, The Rosie O'Donnell Show in New York City, and outdoors in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, were introduced as evidence during Erik's criminal trial. The photos spoke volumes of the children's happiness and Erik's sincere concern for his foster kids. State witnesses failed to convince jurors of any crime. Erik's criminal trial was publicized in local newspapers and the television news. The Gwinnett County District Attorney's Office was embarrassed by its failure to convict Erik of a contrived case mounted by politics, corruption and injustice.
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