A national podcast on Tuesday put a spotlight on a Madison County investment firm headed by businessman and former asbestos attorney Jeffrey Cooper in a discussion about alleged bombshell emails and text messages allegedly retrieved recently through Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop, and other sources.
In the podcast, co-host Jack Maxey opines that Cooper "controls the narrative" in many dealings with Hunter Biden.
Attempts to reach Cooper for reaction were made Thursday at his home and office in Edwardsville.
Cooper, a Granite City native, and Hunter Biden have known one another for two decades, having met through their wives, former Oak Park, Ill. high school classmates Francesca Moroney Cooper and Kathleen Buhle Biden. In the mid-2000s they met frequently in Chicago with Francesca and Kathleen, a Chicago-based college friend of Francesa and Jeff at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind. told the Record in 2005.
On the War Room podcast, Maxey focused on Eudora Global: "You know that company that nobody can understand the structure, or how money is made," he said.
Eudora Global is located at 103 W. Vandalia St. in Edwardsville, just steps away from the Madison County courthouse.
Cooper started Eudora Global in 2012, with Hunter Biden among its managers. Hunter Biden dropped off the list of Eudora Global managers in 2014.
On Thursday, Eudora Global's office appeared vacant. No lights were on and no persons were visible at first. Only a single active computer screen indicated activity. After a moment, a male came from a back room into the main office and received a message for Cooper. He said he would pass it along and also said he believed Cooper was traveling at the time.
Asbestos litigation and politics
Fifteen years ago in Madison County, Cooper and partner John Simmons ranked as the busiest asbestos lawyers in the nation’s busiest asbestos court.
In 2005, when a new Madison County asbestos judge signaled he might dismiss lawsuits from out of state plaintiffs, Cooper and Simmons began filing a portion of their suits in Delaware, and elsewhere.
The son of then Senator Joe Biden, and brother to Hunter - the late lawyer Beau Biden - that year stopped representing asbestos defendants. He switched sides and his Wilmington firm began filing asbestos suits for plaintiffs, and as local counsel for Cooper and Simmons.
Also that year, Sen. Joe Biden was among key Democrats who helped derail a $140 billion asbestos trust fund bill that would have resolved pending and future asbestos claims. The senators, including Ted Kennedy, Dick Durbin and Russ Feingold, argued that money in the trust fund would run out quickly and that provisions in the bill, such as requiring a worker to prove that asbestos was a substantial contributing factor to disease, were unfair.
In 2005 and 2006, Federal Election Commission reports show Joe Biden's campaign for a seventh U.S. Senate term received at least $114,250 from SimmonsCooper firm attorneys, staff and relatives.
Joe Biden's presidential bid in 2007 received at least $46,450 from SimmonsCooper attorneys, staff and relatives.
In 2008, they also contributed more than $160,000 to campaigns of the eventual Vice President Joe Biden.
On his own
In 2008, Cooper left Simmons to pursue business on his own.
He started Ocho Gaming and a Peruvian affiliate, Juega Ocho, in 2012. In 2013, Ocho and gaming provider Totel Football announced a partnership.
In a press release Cooper stated, “It is impossible to overestimate the popularity of the beautiful game and the passion of its supporters in Latin America.”
Ocho Gaming’s website identifies it as a premier provider of online gaming in Latin America.
On Oct. 28, a link to live gambling on Ocho Gaming’s website produced a white screen with an American flag in the center.
A message on it stated, “See you after the election! Vote! It matters!”
The same screen appeared in place of Eudora Global’s website on Wednesday, which previously posted platitudes and pretty pictures.
Cooper also operates through Atomic 47, a Nevada corporation, at the same address as Eudora Global in Edwardsville.
Last year Cooper notified the Securities Exchange Commission that Atomic 47 offered $18 million in securities, according to a notice of exempt offering of securities. Cooper is listed as an executive officer and its director. David Bamper, Scott Wanamaker, Kevin Fitzgerald, Frederick Licon, Daniel Scanlan, and James Mrowka are listed as executive officers.
The SEC filing says that Atomic 47 sold $6,098,164 of its offering. This March, Atomic 47 reported it sold $10,479,708, leaving $7,520,292 to be sold.
Atomic 47 acquired a trademark for Silver Street Technologies last year.
Cooper no longer uses the Illinois law license he obtained in 1995, having placed it on voluntary inactive status.