Two women who alleged they were sexually abused as minors by a now-imprisoned former Hollywood studio architect have reached a tentative settlement in their lawsuit against the designer.
Jeffrey Cooper was a longtime member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He founded the Calabasas Shul in 1994 and served as its board president.
The plaintiffs are identified only as Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 in their Van Nuys Superior Court lawsuit and both are now adults. On Wednesday, the plaintiffs’ attorneys filed court papers with Judge Huey P. Cotton notifying him of a “conditional” accord in the case with the expectation that a request for dismissal will be filed by Jan. 12. No terms were divulged.
Also on Wednesday, the plaintiffs’ attorneys dismissed the Calabasas Shul as a defendant in the case.
The women filed their lawsuit in July 2022. In a sworn declaration, Doe 1 referred multiple times to what Cooper allegedly did to her as “the incident.” In their court papers, the shul’s attorneys stated that Doe 1 contended that Cooper molested her in a music room after the girl’s parents left her alone with him during a 2006 personal visit.
The shul lawyers maintained that the synagogue had no obligation to protect Doe 1 from the alleged misconduct of a third party such as Cooper.
Doe 1 further said in her declaration that she participated in a Kids Club with other children when she attended the Calabasas Shul when it regularly when it operated out of Bay Laurel Elementary School in Calabasas.
“During Kids Club and years prior to the incident, Cooper increasingly began to be more physical towards me,” Doe 1 says. “He would give me hugs, hold my hands, rub his hands on my back and sit very close to me,” she said, adding that Cooper “did not in any way try to hide it or minimize it.”
Doe 1 said that because no one ever raised concerns about Cooper’s conduct toward her during Kids Club, she thought what he was doing was normal.
“No one affiliated with the shul ever provided me or my parents with any training, education or warnings that the type of behavior Cooper was exhibiting towards me was inappropriate or could lead to unwanted sexual advances,” Doe 1 says.
“I now understand that this was grooming behavior by Cooper.”
Doe 1 says that years later during college, she took part in numerous acting exercises and that during one such session she was told to face a wall and yell as if the wall were a person.
“I imagined the wall was Cooper and repeatedly yelled `No,”’ Doe 1 said. “‘Following this exercise, I was in hysterics and called my mom to tell her about it and that I was struggling with what Cooper had done to me.”
In a separate declaration, Doe 1’s mother echoed her daughter’s claims that Cooper’s alleged abuses impacted her daughter’s college studies and she says she sought input from the Calabasas Shul rabbi.
The woman also says she met again with the rabbi a few years later and expressed her concerns about there being other victims.
“I told him I was frustrated and concerned that nothing was being done to make sure that Cooper could not abuse any more minor females who were a part of the Calabasas Shul,” according to Doe 1’s mother, who further says the rabbi replied that “he was handling it.”
Cooper was convicted in May 2022 of three felony counts of lewd acts on a child involving Jane Doe 1. Jurors deadlocked on charges against Cooper that involved his second accuser, who was 6 years old when Cooper allegedly began grooming her.
Cooper testified in the criminal case and denied the allegations. He said there were multiple adults around at all times, including parents and the grandparents of one of the girls, who were longtime friends of the Coopers.
Cooper, now 73, was sentenced to eight years in state prison by Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Alan Schneider, who also ordered him to register as a sex offender. Cooper was attacked by other inmates in August and October of 2022, leaving him with an ongoing hearing loss as well as headaches and memory impairment.