Projo Politics Blog

The fundraiser held Oct. 26 at Chan’s restaurant, in Woonsocket, had political undertones, but it wasn’t for a candidate on the ballot tomorrow. Rather, it was for a former campaign worker for a candidate who didn’t make it onto the ballot.

Several local bands played that Thursday night to raise money to help pay legal bills for Robert W. Cooper, campaign aide to Dennis Michaud, whose nascent campaign for governor disintegrated when Michaud failed to submit the number of signatures required for placement on the Republican primary ballot.

Michaud submitted 1,300 signatures, but local canvassing boards deemed only 933 valid. A few days later, the state police charged Cooper with falsifying election records, after it turned out that two of the registered voters who supposedly signed Michaud’s nomination papers were dead. The state police said some of the other signatures appeared to be written in identical handwriting.

Cooper told a reporter in July that he was having trouble getting people to sign Michaud’s papers so he offered to pay people – some of them models recruited through a Scituate agency – to collect them. Although Cooper was not collecting all the signatures himself, he said he didn’t lie by signing an affidavit that said the signatures were collected in his presence because “if the woman is over there, she’s still in my presence. If she’s 12 feet away from me over here, she’s still in my presence. When I’m all done, I know that the person with that paper had a warm body in front of them signing that paper.”

The case against Cooper is still pending. He said Friday that his Superior Court arraignment, a necessary step in a felony case, had been postponed to January. A spokesman for the judiciary was not available Friday, and the state courts Web site listed no date for Cooper’s next scheduled appearance.

Cooper is using a public defender, but said he has been getting legal advice from a private attorney, Providence lawyer John H. Ruginski Jr., and that advice has cost “a few thousand dollars” so far.

Tony Caramadre, the fundraiser’s organizer, said Friday he didn’t know yet how much money the event raised because donations were still coming in by mail. The ticket price was $10, but larger donations were, naturally, welcome.

The campaign-related arrest is the latest in a series of hard knocks in Cooper’s life. He said his house in Providence’s Armory District burned down in 2002, and his daughter subsequently committed suicide. Cooper, 49, was renting an apartment in Coventry at the time of his arrest, but is now “staying with friends from place to place in and around Providence,” he said Friday.

Cooper said he is a self-employed promoter and publicist. He said his recent accounts have included promoting the documentary Italian Americans and Federal Hill, released this fall, and publicizing the story of Jojo Gator, the Warwick man who tried to sell his family’s service for a year for $1.5 million on eBay earlier this year.

Caramadre, a bassist and pianist who plays with the band In the Groove and runs a recording studio, Phat Tones, in his Warwick home, said Cooper had done publicity work for him as well.

The fundraiser invitation said Caramadre and several other clients organized the event “because they believe in Cooper’s integrity” and appreciate the work he’s done for local musicians.

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